Massachusetts looks at the health and health care equation

Former ABC News correspondent Carole Simpson, who serves as a commissioner for the RWJF Commission to Build a Healthier America, explains why promoting health is key to reform.

We are not alone.  While our Commission to Build a Healthier America was studying alternatives to expensive medical care to improve the health of our citizens, so, too, was the New England Health Institute (NEHI) with funding from The Boston Foundation.

On June 30—after a 2-year study—NEHI released the results of its findings and recommendations in a report titled, Healthy People in a Healthy Economy: A Blueprint for Action in Massachusetts. Two hundred interested health care providers, policy makers and others attended the event at The Boston Foundation’s headquarters.

The report emphasizes that the economic downturn is making it more difficult to fight the double threat in Massachusetts of “rising health care costs combined with a rising tide of preventable chronic illness.”

The principal author of the study, Tom Hubbard, stated: “As people lose their jobs or see their incomes decline, they find it more difficult to afford out-of-pocket medical costs and health insurance premiums.  And when times get tight,” he added, “people also lose the means to eat healthfully and exercise regularly.”

The study found that the growing increase in obesity, diabetes and other chronic diseases are not only hurting residents, but also the economy of the entire state.  It’s estimated that chronic disease takes a $34 billion toll on Massachusetts every year.

Like the Commission’s report, the Massachusetts study calls for a cultural shift that encourages and makes possible wellness and fitness across the population.

During a panel discussion I had the pleasure to moderate, Bruno Nardone of IBM discussed the ways his company gives incentives for employees to exercise every day, to lose weight, to stop smoking, and to eat healthy foods.  He said workers can scarcely avoid messages throughout the workplace, which encourage healthy lifestyles.  What IBM does, Nardone says, every business can do.  Healthy employees, he added, increase a company’s bottom line.

Another panelist, Ranch Kimball, president and CEO of the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, said Type II diabetes is a preventable disease and the cost of treating the chronic illness is enormous.  He called for measures to prevent diabetes that should be implemented during childhood.

When I asked the panelists if disease prevention could ever be accomplished in Massachusetts and the rest of the nation, they agreed it could.  That was the good news.   When I asked how long it would take for the majority of American citizens to adopt healthy lifestyles, the panelists harked back to the 1964 Surgeon General warning about cigarettes, which is finally taking hold.  Based on that example, and here’s the bad news, the best guess by the experts was that it would take two to two and half generations to get people to take responsibility and live healthier lives. 

Professor David Cutler, of Harvard University, who advised candidate Barack Obama on health issues, said the nation needs health care reform that provides universal coverage to all. But he believes that the promotion of health and fitness must be an integral part of any new health care program.  He believes the White House and the Congress are getting the message.