Happy New Year! Thank heavens! I commented on 2020 last month, so weíll just look ahead at this point and leave last year in the rearview mirror.The January NFH is our annual health and wellness issue. Of course, we have an article on COVID-19 fatigue, and Pete Gawda compares past pandemics to COVID. We tackled diabetes and the importance of knowing the difference between Diabetes 1 and Diabetes 2 ó to fully understand the disease itself, read the article by Leslie Sheley. Ava Stoller wrote a follow-up article on addictions; and, in his column, Mark Stoller addresses some holistic health avenues in Markís Meanderings. Bill Radford interviewed two Falcon physician assistants for People on the PlainsAccording to the Pew Research Center, in August, 68% of Americans cited health care as their main concern, as they decided how to vote in the 2020 election. It will be interesting to see how president-elect Joe Biden maneuvers the challenges we all face with health care issues. Obamacare is still relevant so my guess is that Biden will look at the program and perhaps find avenues to improve the system. Although itís a hot political potato, Obamacare is all many people have right now.I found some interesting statistics on health care worldwide from policyadvise.net. The global health industry was worth $8.45 trillion in 2018. By 2022, that number could be more than $10 trillion. The U.S. has the greatest health care spending at $10,224 per capita. In comparison, these are considered the top spenders: Switzerland and Germany spend $8,009 and $5,728 per capita, respectively. The U.S. spends twice what other countries do on health care. The U.S. spends 17.8% of the countryís GDP.This really surprised me: There are 784,626 companies in the U.S. health care sector. And McKesson is the largest U.S. health care company, with an annual revenue of $208.3 billion. UnitedHealth Group is next, with $201 billion. CVS Health is at $184.7 billion. So, this is the 18th year that the NFH has been serving Falcon and the area. When we started this newspaper, Falcon was a sleepy little spot on the prairie east of the big city of Colorado Springs. Weíve told the story a few times, but Iíll tell it again for our new readers. We had no idea what to expect when we first published as a newsletter. The response was so overwhelming that we went to a newspaper format our second month! And weíve been going ever since. Thank you to our advertisers and our readers for supporting us all these years. Our New Yearís resolution is, as always, to keep improving and make this the best little newspaper this side of Powers Boulevard.One last note, we hope you like our front page graphic ó 2020 is in the rearview mirror and we can only ìdriveî forward from here! Welcome 2021!Happy New Year, everyone!See you in February, – Michelle
