One of the biggest myths about health care is that most of those without insurance are illegal immigrants, or are unemployed. This simply isn’t true.

The National Health Care Coalition has found that nearly eighty per cent of the uninsured in America are citizens, and eighty per cent of those come from working class families. During 2006, over 90 percent of the population or nearly five million people, were without any kind of health insurance for at least part of the year. Now that the unemployment figures are higher, that number is also larger.

America is a world leader. Why is nothing being done to guarantee health care to our working families? If you are working just to get by, then you usually make too much to qualify for Medicaid. Staying at home and drawing welfare so that you can have health insurance doesn’t make any sense to most people, and budget problems at the state level is making that harder as well.

Young adults to the age of twenty-four probably don’t give health care a second thought. They are the population group that is most likely to be without a health plan. There are families that earn over $50,000 per year and also don’t have insurance, even when it is offered by their employer, because they just cannot afford the premiums. If a family earning that kind of money cannot afford health insurance, how can a family who earning half of that be expect to pay for a health plan?

The trouble is that being uninsured means that serious illnesses may go undiagnosed or untreated. Even something like the flu can cause complications and even death if left untreated.

Someone without health insurance is more likely to end up hospitalized for an avoidable condition. The cost of that stay will be around $3000. If that person had been seen a doctor, the condition could have been caught and treated before it became a problem. Hospitals treat patients without insurance and it costs nearly $34million dollars every year. That cost is added back to the paying public through higher hospital bills. This increases insurance rates forces more people to go without.

Affordable health insurance in America needs to be talked about not only during election years. We all need to focus on it and fix it now, realistically and fairly. Health insurance should not be a luxury, or an option for a select few. It should be affordable for all.

The use of medication as the primary form of treatment for High Blood Pressure has come on in leaps and bounds over the past fifty years and what was once a very inexact science has now become one where by and large it is very exact. The treatment programmes that were instigated seem very primitive in hindsight and thankfully now with the introduction of increasingly sophisticated drug therapy matters have moved ahead somewhat.

The major treatment approach of High Blood Pressure Medication at the time largely consisted of advising patients to have a diet that was low in salt, lots of “bed rest” and possibly the use of sleeping pills. Drug treatment for those suffering from High Blood Pressure (Hypertension) can significantly increase the lifespan and reduce mortality rates accordingly and to millions of people the world over (myself included) these drug related therapies have been very much a life saver.

However as with most things, the use of drug therapy, whilst extremely useful in most cases, is not always the best choice for people in certain cases.

For those suffering with moderately raised blood pressure, mild incidences of Hypertension and no incidences of Heart Problem, you can usually bring blood pressure down to normal levels in a bout a year of starting lifestyle changes. Changes like these can help sufferer’s of high blood pressure manage HBP over the longer term as well since as we all know Hypertension does not go away. Successful management of high blood pressure like this ensures that in some cases (and it does have to be stressed here that we are talking about some cases) the use of medication can and does become unnecessary.

Whenever and wherever, the instigation of non drug therapies is encouraged and even if not successful in isolation, the end result means that the amounts of drugs and the types used can be of a more reasonable amount and type.

Talk to your doctor about what your blood pressure goal should be. Once you establish a blood pressure goal, work with your doctor to reach that goal and keep your numbers at a healthy level. This may mean making healthy lifestyle changes. Some people are able to successfully lower their blood pressure this way. However, most people also need the help of prescription medications to further lower their blood pressure. And most people need more than one medication to reach their blood pressure goal.

EXFORGE and EXFORGE HCT are prescription medicines for the treatment of high blood pressure. EXFORGE contains two prescription medicines: amlodipine, a calcium channel blocker (CCB), and valsartan, an angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB). EXFORGE may be used when any one of the following medicines to lower your high blood pressure is not enough: a dihydropyridine CCB or an ARB. It may also be used as the first medicine to lower high blood pressure if your doctor decides you are likely to need more than one medicine. EXFORGE HCT contains three prescription medicines: amlodipine, valsartan, and hydrochlorothiazide (a diuretic or water pill). EXFORGE HCT may be used to lower blood pressure in adults when any two of the following medicines to lower high blood pressure have been tried first: a CCB, an ARB, and a diuretic.