Financial Crisis

Every day lately, the news reminds us of the sad financial state many of the western world's countries are in.  Thankfully Canada's financial situation is still looking solid.  That's not something that's guaranteed to continue should our neighbours to the south and across the pond succumb to the weight of their debts.

As an individual looking at the massive amounts of money countries owe, including our own, I find the numbers incomprehensible.  I simply cannot even begin to visualize what those amounts of money really look like.  How big a stack of looney's is one hundred billion?  How many greenbacks in ten trillion?  And then I have to consider that these debts are debts of the people of the country.  The governments cannot be separated from the people.  The politicians may have done the spending, but they have been spending the money of the people.  So if it is our money as citizens we must assume some responsibility for this debt.  As I see  it we must do two things.  One is to hold governments responsible for how they spend OUR money and secondly is to be responsible ourselves in how we utilize government resources.  It's this second point on which I want to focus.  The sense of entitlement I see in news articles about the protesters to austerity programs in Europe saddens me.  The populous is bleeding the countries dry.  Governments cannot give support if they have nothing to give anymore that I as a individual can give support to others if I have nothing to give.

We are going to have to expect our governments to give us less if there is going to be financial stability.  The biggest single expenditure item in the budgets of Canadian governing bodies, and most western countries, is health care.  This is an area that we as individual citizens can have a significant impact.  How can you or I as individuals make a difference to the financial health of our country?

The first step is to take responsibility for our own health.  It's not up the the government or their paid helpers to keep us healthy.   The lifestyle choices we make should be ones that promote health not hinder it.  Do we choose nutritious food or junk food?  Do we choose to smoke or not?  Do we exercise or become couch potatoes?  The list of choices we face goes on.  Many of our lifestyle decisions will determine how big a burden we will be on the health care system.

The second thing is to choose cost effective health care options.  Nutritional supplements may look expensive as we pull out our wallets and pay for them.  Drugs are not cheap either.  The big cost savings with supplements is that they build the body up rather than tear it down.  Drugs on the other hand cause many side effects which often require the need for more drugs and more intervention which escalates the costs.  Whenever possible low tech, low cost diagnostics should be used.  Save the expensive procedures for serious, complicated situations.  Not every headache requires an MRI scan.  Chiropractic care is extremely low cost compared to medical care.  A patient can receive many years of chiropractic care for the cost of a low back surgery.  Every prevented surgery saves the health care system and the economy tens of thousands of dollars.

Certainly there may be times when we will need to have expensive interventions for the sake of our health.  But if we have made wise choices those occasions will be minimized.  If used judiciously by everyone the health care system will be healthy enough to meet our needs in times of crisis.  It is like we have put money into savings over time and can withdraw it in our time of need.  As individuals we can help our country's finances and improve the health care system by taking responsibility for our own health.  This is the kind of financial situation I can wrap my head around.