Nobody wakes up excited to talk about health insurance.

But almost everyone wakes up affected by health—energy, mood, sleep, weight, blood pressure, joint pain, stress, brain fog, motivation, and whether you can actually enjoy your family and your work.

That’s the difference:

Health insurance is an administrative tool. Health is your quality of life.

In a conversation between Curtis Johnson, host of Knockin' Hard and Clearwater Benefits CRO Jack Hawthorne, the conversation wasn’t about "plan designs" or "claims mechanics". It was the uncomfortable truth sitting underneath American healthcare:

The U.S. system rewards “sick-care,” not health

Stated bluntly, there are massive incentives for people staying sick.

The U.S. healthcare system is largely transaction-based, not outcome-based. That means the machine gets paid when something happens—visits, prescriptions, procedures—not necessarily when you become healthier and need less of everything.

This is why so many people feel like the system isn’t “working” for them… while it keeps getting bigger every year.

And here’s the tell:

If the system were truly engineered to make us healthier, the biggest health stats would be moving the other direction.

‍Obesity would be down. Chronic disease would be down. Heart disease would be down.

For decades, many of those trends have gone the wrong way.

That doesn’t mean modern medicine is bad. It means we’re often using medicine to manage problems that our lifestyle and the industry's incentives keep creating.

Why your health plan feels like it “doesn’t quite do the trick”

Most people assume their plan is designed around their needs.

It usually isn’t.

Jack explained it simply: a marketplace plan is built for a massive pool, thousands to millions of people. As a result, it might be partly applicable to you, but rarely tailored. That’s why you’ll hear people say things like:

• “I pay a lot and still don’t feel covered.”
• “I’m scared to use it.”
• “I’m never sure what it’ll actually do.”

It’s not just confusion. It’s structural.

And for business owners, it gets more intense—because you’re not just making decisions for yourself. You’re making them for employees, families, and budgets. Also, if you're like most of our clients, you take the full force of your plan's premium in the teeth... no subsidy break for you.

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The lie we’ve all absorbed: “To make healthcare cheaper, it has to be worse”

We’ve been trained to believe cost reduction means coverage reduction.

But in practice, there are cases where smarter design improves the experience and lowers costs—because it targets the real drivers of spending: chronic disease, unmanaged conditions, and avoidable high-cost events.

Jack used a “Lego bricks” analogy: with employer benefits, you can assemble a plan using components—solutions most people have never heard of—that can be added without raising cost unless used.

Here’s why that matters:

The hidden world of solutions most people don’t know exist

Jack shared an example that captures the point: there are services that can improve outcomes dramatically (even life-or-death outcomes), and sometimes cost a plan nothing unless someone uses them.

Note why thats "future cost" is important... if they're being used, you again don't care much about the price as they're designed to save on the downstream cost - reduce the cost of the coverage you now need to provide to your employees through you company plan.

Most employees and even many employers never hear about these options because the market is loud, confusing, and dominated by incumbents.

So the average person thinks their choices are:

• pay more for a name-brand plan, or
• pay less and “hope for the best.”

That’s a false binary.

The bigger unlock: staying out of the system as much as possible

Even the best plan in the world is still dealing with the aftermath.

If you want a better life, you don’t start with “what’s my deductible.”
You start with how do I reduce the odds I need the system in the first place.

Curtis tied it to something personal: watching family members ignore the basic cause-and-effect of things like too much sugar, tobacco, alcohol - AKA, poor health habits - until it ended with what could have been a preventable illness.

That’s the part nobody wants to hear, but everyone needs to.

Comfort is not neutral

Modern life is comfortable in ways we all weren’t built for: constant food availability, ultra-processed ingredients, endless scrolling, low movement, high stress, low sleep.

Comfort feels harmless. Over time, it becomes expensive and weighs on your ability to do just about everything.

The “boring” health strategy that beats 95% of people

You don’t need extreme programs to improve health.

The conversation kept circling back to simple, sustainable habits:

• Walk consistently
• Reduce sugar
• Eat more whole foods
• Avoid foods with long ingredient lists
• Do a manageable exercise routine weekly
• Stop trying to sprint your way into a new body

Curtis nailed it: if you can exercise a bit each week and eat “relatively healthy” (even in just two key areas), you’re ahead of most people.

Jack added the behavior truth: most people fail because they choose an identity makeover instead of a habit.

They go from “I’m out of shape” to “I’m doing P90X plus a juice cleanse.”

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Then they crash, rebound, feel sad and get worse.

“Do something that sucks every day”

This wasn’t framed as macho motivation—it was framed as a mental and physical reset.

Jack’s version is cardio plus a cold plunge. He hates it every morning. That’s the point.

It teaches your brain: I can do hard things on command.

Health is built on that skill more than people want to admit.

Curtis's version centers around hitting the gym and cutting out a meal or two each day... keep it in check but do so in a way that works for you.

What business has to do with health (secondary—but real)

Here’s where the conversation connected the dots: entrepreneurs are often in perpetual stress mode.

That stress bleeds into:

• eating habits (“I eat my feelings”)
• sleep
• consistency
• inflammation
• decision-making

Jack shared a counterintuitive shift: he got more done when he structured his day around focus blocks, movement, and family boundaries. Less “busy.” More effective.

Not because balance is magic—because stress destroys execution and execution destroys stress.

The takeaway: stop worshipping coverage and start building health

Health insurance matters—especially for protection against financial catastrophe.

But most people treat “having insurance” like it’s the health plan as opposed to what it really is - a sick plan.

Your real health plan is what you do daily:

• what you eat
• how you move
• how you sleep
• how you manage stress
• what you consume mentally

If you want a simple place to start, steal the most practical lines from the conversation:

1. Walk more than you do now.
2. Eat fewer foods with long ingredient lists.
3. Reduce sugar—consistently.
4. Stop sprinting. Start stacking habits.
5. Do one hard thing daily so comfort doesn’t run your body.

Build health first. Let your business benefit as a side effect.

That’s the real escape plan.

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