Resources
Cover the Kids
To
learn why covering children under Medicaid and the State Children’s
Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) is so important and to find out
what other states are doing to cover all children, read the
following two
reports from the Kaiser Foundation.
WVAHC's Blueprint for Health Care Reform
Run-away
health care costs put everyone’s care in jeopardy. We’ve looked at
the research, consulted experts, and talked with our fellow West
Virginians, and we see solutions. They involve straightforward,
doable actions to control health care costs and provide coverage to
everyone. Our Blueprint
outlines the many improvements and reforms that are entirely
possible within our state, right now.
Prescription Drug Trends
This is a
Kaiser Family Foundation Report on Prescription Drug Trends.
Prescription drugs are vital to preventing and treating illness and
helping to avoid more costly medical problems. Rising costs and
implementation of the new Medicare drug benefit have highlighted the
need for a better understanding of the pharmaceutical market and for
new approaches to address rising costs.
Families USA Counts Deaths Due to Lack of Coverage
Families USA has generated the first-ever state-level estimates of
the number of deaths due to lack of health insurance. Their
estimates are based on both the Institute of Medicine and The Urban
Institute methodologies applied to state-level data. In 2006, there
were nearly 1,043,000 people between the ages of 25 and 64 living in
West Virginia. Of those, 16.5 percent were uninsured.2 Uninsured
West Virginians are sicker and die sooner than their insured
counterparts. Read the details
here.
Miliken Institute Finds West Virginia Chronically Ill
The Milken Institute found that West Virginia had the highest incidents
of seven chronic illnesses in the country. These seven illnesses
listed in order of number of cases in West Virginia are: pulmonary
conditions, hypertension, mental disorders, heart disease, diabetes,
cancer and stroke. These conditions shorten lives, reduce quality of
life, and have a significant and negative impact on businesses.
While West Virginia spends $2.3 billion on treating these seven
illnesses, it cost businesses $8.1 billion in lost productivity from
these illnesses. The West Virginia data can be found
here.
Get the Junk Out of Our Schools
The prestigious Institute of Medicine issued an
April 2007
report that calls on schools to ban trans fat and limit
calories, fat, sugar and sodium in foods sold in schools.
Additionally, the report calls on schools to ban soft drinks sold
during school time.
Who Has the Best? U.S.?
Many
Americans believe that we have the best health care system in the
world. The Commonwealth Fund, a national health care
research organization, studied the health care systems of six
different countries: Austria, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, England
and the United States. The report examined Quality of Care,
including right care, safe care, coordinated care, and
patient-center care, as well as access, efficiency, equity, and
long, healthy and productive lives. Despite spending almost double
the average of these five other countries, the United States was
rated last or second to last on all but one of these criteria.
Canada didn’t do much better. They were rated fifth out of the six
countries. England was the first rate country, followed by Germany,
with Australia and New Zealand tied for third place. You can read
the entire
Mirror, Mirror on the Wall report, or click on a
chart that summaries the
report.
Costs are Rising
The most recent
Kaiser
Family Foundation Survey of Employer Health Benefits found that
from spring 2006 to spring 2007, premiums for health care rose 6.1
percent for employers. The average premium for a family plan is now
more than $12,000 a year. While the increase in premiums were below
the double digit increases in health care that we experienced
earlier in this decade, it is more than double the overall rate of
inflation (2.6%), and exceeded wage gains which were 3.7%. During
the last four years, premiums have increased by more than a third.
In 1960 Americans spent $28 billion on health care, just a little over 5% of the gross domestic product (GDP). By 2004 spending had increased 66 fold to $1.9 trillion, and consumed 16.0% of our GDP. On a per person basis the 1960 amount of $148 had grown to $6,300 in 2004. Put another way: What we spent during the entire year in 1960 would purchase 5 1/2 days of health care in 2004. The chart says it all.
Uninsurance
Read
this important paper authored by the American College of
Physicians:
No
Health Insurance? It's Enough to Make You Sick - Scientific Research
Linking the Lack of Health Coverage to Poor Health You'll find
that uninsured Americans experience reduced Access to Care,
uninsured Americans are less likely to have a regular source of
care, uninsured Americans are less likely to have had a recent
physician visit, uninsured Americans are more likely to delay
seeking care, uninsured Americans are more likely to report they
have not received needed care. Uninsured Americans are less likely
to use preventive services. Uninsured Americans experience poorer
medical outcomes. They experience a generally higher mortality
and a specifically higher in-hospital mortality and may be up to
three times more likely than privately insured individuals to
experience adverse health outcomes. Uninsured Americans have been
found to be up to four times as likely as insured patients to
require both avoidable hospitalizations and emergency hospital care.
Advance Directives
Because
most health care dollars are spent in the last few months of life,
we all need to be certain that we get only the care we need and the
care we want. Each of us should have a living will and medical
power of attorney. A living will tells your doctor what
life-prolonging interventions you want to be used if you are
terminally ill or in a persistent vegetative state. A medical
power of attorney gives someone whom you select the right to make
medical decisions for you if you become unable to do so. The
West
Virginia Center for End-of-Life Care has all the forms and
information you need to make a living will and medical power of
attorney or you can download the forms here:
Who Spends the Most for Health?
Expenditures
for health care are concentrated in relatively small number of
patients according to a Health Affairs article.
Concentration
of Health Care Expenses Revisted found that the sickest one
percent of individuals use 27 percent of health care expenses. The
top 5 percent use 55% of all health carte dollars. By contrast the
healthiest 50 percent of the population only uses 3% of health care
expenses. Any effort to control health care inflation has to
concentrate on the sickest individuals and to prevent others from
becoming this sick. No public policy or amount of education that is
aimed at the healthiest 50% of the population will have any
meaningful impact on overall health care expenses.
340B Drug Pricing Program Sites
West
Virginia’s federally qualified health clinics -- or FQHCs -- are
mostly rural clinics that accept all patients regardless of their
ability to pay. They provide quality primary care, and have access
to what is called 340B prescription drugs. These brand name drugs
are priced 50 to 60 percent below the average wholesale price and 10
percent below Canadian drug prices. West Virginian’s federally
qualified clinics are well suited to provide the state’s residents
with quality, low cost primary care. We should actively encourage
their use. A list of the West Virginia clinics that dispense 340B
drugs can be found
here.