Getting a fix on the overall health of Bermudians is pretty difficult, as the survey released yesterday by the Bermuda Health Council shows.The blizzard of statistics can be baffling, with different diseases and conditions increasing and decreasing. But the overall trend appears to be that residents are as healthy or slightly healthier than they were when the last survey took place five years ago.That’s good news, and not as surprising as the constant flow of anecdotes about couch potatoes and obesity might suggest.Public awareness of the need for health habits has increased and so has medicine, so there should have been improvements.Nonetheless, there is still much to be done, and the continued high incidences of diabetes and high blood pressure, among other things, is worrying. The good news is they can be reduced through prevention.What is indisputable is that people are dissatisfied with the health system itself. This is jarring since the general standards of health and care are satisfactory. But it has a great deal to do with cost, as Bermuda’s health care costs trail only those of the US.The challenge is how to deliver a high standard of health care at a reasonable cost to individuals without also placing an unbearable strain on an already battered economy.It may be possible to satisfy two of these requirements, but not all three, meaning that something will have to give.Ultimately Health Minister Zane DeSilva will have to make that choice, and it’s an unenviable task in which not only will there be no popular answer, but the cost of getting it wrong will be enormous.