(Updated 8/20/2010)
Click the appropriate links to read Part 1, Part 2, or Part 3 of this series.
Efforts to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 are misguided. Though these new laws can be improved, they are important first steps toward reducing health care costs and increasing access to quality care.
Opponents claim that insurance subsidies and increases to the Medicare and Medicaid rolls will increase costs. They also cite full coverage of preventive care as another new expense. Part 2 of this series deals with the much higher costs of treating advanced diseases that could have been prevented and the economic impact of such care.
For example, the Annals of Internal Medicine reported that lifestyle changes for a patient with Type 2 diabetes cost $1100 per year versus $31,300 for the drug Metformin. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and several peer-reviewed medical journals also reported that lifestyle intervention for participants in the Diabetes Prevention Program yielded a 58 percent decrease in the risk of diabetes as opposed to 31 percent with metformin. In 2007 the American Diabetes Foundation estimated that 17.9 million people had been diagnosed with the disease, while another 5.7 million had not yet been diagnosed and 57 million had pre-diabetes.
Last year Dr. Margaret Gatz and a team of researchers from the University of Southern California reported a 125 percent increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease in Swedish twins who developed Type 2 diabetes before the age of 65. This year the Alzheimer’s Association reported that 5.3 million people have Alzheimer’s disease. The annual cost for their treatment is $172 billion. Researchers expect that number to triple in the coming decades. Just think how much money early intervention can save in this area alone.
Deficit hawks also don’t understand that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has expanded the definition of the health care workforce. Licensed complementary and alternative medicine providers and integrative health care practitioners are now included in the system. These professionals are experienced in using lifestyle intervention to treat disease.
When coupled with First Lady Michelle Obama’s efforts to fight childhood obesity and improve school lunches, future medical costs should drop sharply. Obesity and poor nutrition increase the rates and costs of diabetes and related illnesses.
Even as as these reforms have taken shape, insurance companies have taken advantage of the confusion to increase the cost of premiums and fight for higher fees. Do you really feel sorry for executives who need extra cash from you to pay their multi-million dollar salaries?
As anyone with an open mind can see, insurance companies are not interested in their customers. Though I once supported the free-market approach to health care reform, that can only work in a culture that is not based on greed. Without government intervention, health care costs will continue to skyrocket until they destroy the U.S. economy.
Click here to read the summary or full text of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Click here to read the summary or text of the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010.
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