Dohhh!!! (As Homer Would Say...)

Americans have had multiple identities throughout their history: from patriots, innovators and hard-workers to being perceived as arrogant, obese, and the "world-police." But there is one word that sums up an American today unlike any other: CONSUMER. In a free-market driven by supply and demand, Americans pride themselves on the freedom of the individual and the advantage of the market place to dictate what will and won't work. Unfortunately, with the current economic crisis, many Americans have seen that the gluttonous behavior of biting off more than you can chew has caught up with them. From the average consumer that charges much more than he can afford on his credit card, to hedge fund managers from Harvard that saw their multi-default credit swaps and sub-prime mortgage derivatives go down the drain - Americans simply wanted more than they could handle. Unfortunately, this behavior not only contributes to the depreciation of the dollar, but can lead to the rise of the essentials of a consumer such as health care costs.

Without a doubt, much of this behavior has lead to an increase in national health spending per capita over recent years. However, the problem goes deeper than just America's economic climate and system; the health care system itself is an environment that brews a steady increase in costs. Spending an enormous amount of GDP to financing health care, lacking a universal health care system, and deferring accumulating emergency health care costs of people who don't have insurance to those who do have all been key reasons that health care costs continue to rise. With the current economic crisis forcing people to be more concerned with food and mortgage bills, issues such as health care will naturally take a back seat. However, Americans must be able to reach into their roots as "patriots" and "innovators" to try to embrace solutions such as electronic health care documentations and have the courage to force their public leaders to eliminate additional costs that accumulate from special interest lobbying groups within the health care system that eat up all that GDP. Homer Simpson would say it best: let's not loose all that... "Dohhhh!"