“Better Off (not) Dead”
March 15, 20114:57 pm
An interesting comment was made today at the annual national health research forum sponsored by the non-profit organization Research! America, and it drove home the conflict lawmakers face in trying to balance deficit reduction against the need for quality healthcare and better preventive care.
Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that the ideal American, from a budget standpoint, “is one who dies at age 65 on the drive home from his retirement party.” His comment gets to the heart of the budget conundrum. If our healthcare system takes steps to help people live longer in their retirement years, then they consume more Social Security and Medicare resources.
Yet, as Frieden also said, we should all be able to agree to the societal goal that “Americans are better off not dead.”
There are some important points here. First, that there is not necessarily a perfect alignment between budgetary goals and the imperative to have a healthy population, that funding for medical research and the effort to prevent and cure disease should not be viewed in the same vein as other areas of discretionary spending. And, second, as Frieden also pointed out, investments in disease prevention do not always fit into the neat, tidy 10-year window that Congress and federal budgeters like to use to score spending, that health prevention measures can sometimes take 20 or 30 years to fully assess their return on investment.
At the same Research! America event, former Congressman Mike Castle said that the need to contain Medicare and Medicaid costs will be one of the major campaign issues in the 2012 elections. No doubt he’s correct, but let’s hope we hear office holders and candidates provide some creative solutions on how to curb cost growth while still achieving the greater objective of keeping Americans alive and healthy.
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124 Responses to ““Better Off (not) Dead””
March 17th, 2011 at 6:23 pm
While there may not be a “perfect budgetary alignment,” the evidence is clear both that significant Medicare savings can be achieved through even modest reductions in risk and that reduction in risk can be achieved. For peer reviewed papers on both of these topics see The Journal of Population Health Management February 2011 Supplement online at either http://www.Healthways.com or http://www.liebertoline.com/toc/pop/14/s1.
The “choice” between a long, healthy life and budget constraint is political sophistry. We can achieve both by focusing resources on keeping healthy people healthy, reducing risk and assuring quality care for this who are I’ll; in short, helping people of all ages, irrespective of health status, avoid t next episode of disease.
Dr. Friedan is correct that the savings from such an effort don’t fit neatly into the congressional or presidential election cycle, bu the savings are real and can be achieved. Since very day we wait just costs mor money we don gave, per APS we should start now.
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