Bruno's Health Care Reform Proposal - Update #2

Recently we published our analysis of the contents and the process of passage of the so-called Obama Care health care reform legislation and several days ago we published our first follow up to that analysis. That update focused on the work underway to use genetically altered tobacco as a biodiesel fuel source. Such a breakthrough would not only wean us from foreign energy sources but it would also reduce disease from personal tobacco usage since simple economics would continue to drive up the cost of tobacco products if tobacco land usage was diverted to use for biofuels.

Today's update focuses on behavior changes, which as we pointed out in our overall analysis of Obama Care, is sorely lacking. Regardless of what the Obama bill does from a financial and funding perspective, since it does not vigorously address changes in behavior, the underlying root causes of high health care costs will not be eliminated. The question that is the basis of our proposed solution to Obama Care is very basic: can you modify personal behavior to the benefit of people's health? Three instances of just that happening say that you can:

1. Although difficult to find the latest data, I did find a report from 2007 at the NHTSA website (www.NHTSA.gov) that addressed the levels of seat belt usage of car seat belts in the country. According to a study described on the government website, the national seat belt usage in cars continued to grow, reaching 82% of U.S. drivers in the 2007 study. This was up from less than 60% in 1994 when the government started collecting seat belt usage information. Usage was probably a lot less prior to 1994. A report on the CDC website went a step further and looked at seat belt usage in states that have an aggressive ticketing approach to non-seat belt wearers and compared that to states that do not have an aggressive approach. They found a very strong correlation, i.e. high enforcement states had a significantly higher usage rate than states that did not have a high enforcement priority for seat belt usage. They also present a chart that shows that highway crash fatalities are strongly but inversely related to seat belt usage, i.e. as seat belt usage has grown the number of highway fatalities has decreased, probably due in some part to the increased seat belt usage. While the national average 82%, some states have usage over 90%, indicating there is still room for improvement. Thus, a good example of the government changing personal behavior and reducing health care costs via the reduction in highway fatalities.
2. An April 5, 2010 Associated Press report reviewed the results from a European study which showed that "one hour of moderate to vigorous exercise a day can help teens beat the effects of a common obesity-related gene with the nickname 'fatso'." The study showed that even if a teenager had the fatso gene, the one hour of exercise could result in their body measurements being in line with those teens that do not carry the gene. The article quoted Dr. Alan Shuldiner of the University of Maryland: 'The message is clear: genes are not destiny. Those with obesity susceptibility genes should be especially motivated to engage in a physically active lifestyle." The article reported similar findings of Amish adults who exercised vigorously. In other words, the obesity epidemic and the resulting high health care costs int his country can be reduced through behavior changes, i.e. exercise.
3. An article in the April 12, 2010 issue of Business Week magazine by Simon Bennett and Tom Randall reviewed an AIDS drug initiative that was hopefully going to produce a drug that could be used prior to infection infection and protect a person from acquiring the disease. That is good news and is similar to our proposal that a concentrated effort should be undertaken to cure a small number of the most deadly diseases in the country today, diseases that create the biggest costs for the U.S. health care system. Examples proposed by our health care solution included breast cancer and Alzheimer's. Additionally, numbers cited in the article showed yet another example where long term focus on changing behavior has been successful. According to the article, AIDS-related annual deaths peaked at 52,000 in the U.S. in 1994 and have since dropped to 14,600 in 2007. The combination of behavior changes and new drug treatments for a major disease, i.e. a disease that affects the greatest number of people, has reduced the health care costs of treating AIDS patients and would likely have the same effect reducing other health care costs.

As review, our hypothesis was that some of the major reasons for high health care costs in this country were smoking, lack of exercise, and poor eating habits. According to information we reported on from the Cleveland Clinic, significantly reduce underlying root causes and behaviors and you will significantly reduce the health care costs in this country. Do not change these behaviors, and no matter how much Obama taxes us and moves money around in the Federal bureaucracy, you will not solve the problem. These four examples, different uses for tobacco fields, exercise, seat belt usage, and multiple approaches to reducing AIDS prove that we can change behavior and make America healthier, something that Obama, Reid, and Pelosi never understood.


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