Please consider contacting your congressman and senator by Email, possibly monthly, in addition to sending them postal letters, possibly every six months, asking that they help increase the National Institutes of Health budget. You can mention aging as part of the request.
You can also telephone their office in Washington about every three months. Let our representatives know that there is interest in medical research.
You can find out the names and addresses of your congressional representatives and senators by typing in to the Google Search Bar "contact your congressman and senator".
I am Enclosing some information that you can use in your correspondence, if you choose to use it. I previously posted this on the LongeCity Forum.
This is an argument that we can use to encourage people to back us for increased government support for medical research.
The United States spends three trillion two hundred billion dollars yearly for medical care. That amounts to ten thousand dollars for every man woman and child in the USA. A family of four needs on average, forty thousand dollars to pay for medical costs. The government and business pay for much of it.
The average family lives on about fifty thousand dollars, after paying for deductions, such as taxes, Social Security, etc. We should use the economic incentive to encourage investment in medical research. Much of it will be used to increase longevity.
Obviously the families do not pay most of the above expenses. The government, corporations, etc. pay much of it. In addition, because of medical conditions, our country spends additional billions for welfare, Social Security Disability, Special transportation for the disabled, etc. That comes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
One million six hundred thousand Americans die of the top eight diseases every year. Over a thirty-year period, the eight illnesses kill forty eight million people.
We need more medical research in the United States. The information below further explains the problem.
You may contact me to discuss strategy for tackling this problem
We need organizations to publicize the above facts.
Americas Biggest Unspoken Security and Economic Problem
This is information about the economic potential of increased medical research spending, which we should advocate for. It also discusses the death rate of some illnesses. Some people will have different figures but if reason prevails, the economics demand that we do much more medical research. Only fools will come to a different conclusion. The general population is not familiar with the following information.
People are very concerned about health costs. It is advisable to show the economic reward potential of increasing the amount of money spent for medical research. The National Institutes of Health(NIH) budget was reduced 25% over the last few years, after considering inflation because of the sequester. Decreasing medical spending will help us cope with our ninteen billion dollar federal budget deficit. People worry about that.
The United States spends 3.1 trillion dollars a year on health care. Per capita spending was $9,697 in 2014. (California Health Care Almanac for 2014). The two thousand and and sixteen health care spending will be even higher. The health cost for a family of four costs on average $38,788 a year in 2014. This year it will cost even more. That is more money than tens of millions of families earn, especially after taxes.
These are some figures from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality,
In 2002, the 5 percent of people with the greatest health care expenses in the U.S. population spent 49 percent of the overall health care dollar. Those in the top 5% spent, on average, 17 times as much as those in the bottom 50%.
- The lower 50 percent of spenders accounted for 3 percent of the total national health care dollar.
- (2. Cornwell LJ, Cohen JW. Characteristics of people with high medical expenses in the U.S. civilian noninstutionalized population, 2002. Statistical Brief #73. March 2005. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. Website: fttp://meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_files/publications/st73.pdf. Accessed April 7, 2006.
The cost of cancer costs in 2010 dollars is $157 billion dollars. In addition, there are costs for Social Security Disability, welfare, food stamps, etc. That also amounts to billions of dollars. This year the cost of cancer will be higher.
590,000 United States citizens will die of cancer in 20016. That' is about 1600 people a day. During the 15 years of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars 6,280 American died in combat.. That is about four days of cancer deaths in 2016.
The Kaiser Family Health Care Foundation in May of 2012 said that 5% of the US population use half of the health care and spend almost 50% of all health costs.
If we do the math and extrapolate the figures to 2014, we see that 50% of the healthiest Americans use only ninety billion dollars a year of a more than three trillion plus health care system. Few seniors fall into this category. If everybody were in this category, the health care expenditures would go from about three trillion dollars a year to one hundred and eighty billion dollars. That is a savings of two trillion eight hundred billion dollars a year.
In addition to the potential medical care savings, we can save hundreds of billions of dollars yearly from costs such as, Social Security Disability, welfare, food stamps, special transportation, loss of workers in the labor force, etc.
We should also remember that thousands more Americans die of illnesses every two days than died in combat during the twelve years of fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. About 9600 Americans die of illnesses every two days and about 8200 American died in the two wars. Of course, our soldiers are entitled to the highest honors. Deaths from illnesses are an American security problem, which we can solve.
The whole world would benefit from American research. We could make this an international effort, where researchers all over the world would cooperate. It would bring countries together. There are International medical advocacy organizations,.
One million six hundred and thousand Americans die of the top eight diseases yearly. Over a thirty year period that comes to forty eight million people. This is a serious security problem. Let's publicize this. This issue should be on your agenda for action.
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alvin
