Secretary's Corner

Preventing Diseases Before They Happen

We know that we need health reform to ensure Americans get the high-quality, affordable care they need and deserve. Under the status quo, too many Americans can’t get the affordable care they need when they fall ill. But health reform must make health care more than just sick care. Real health reform must also improve the health of our nation by investing in critical prevention and wellness initiatives that help keep Americans healthy and out of the hospital in the first place.

Today, Americans spend more on health care than any other country in the world, yet we don’t live longer. Scientists say this generation of American children may not live as long as their parents did.  If we do nothing, many of them will grow up to develop a chronic disease that could have been prevented if we created incentives to encourage wellness rather than just focusing on treatment.

When we help Americans quit smoking, prevent obesity and give them the tools and information they need to live healthier lives, we all benefit.  Chronic diseases are the leading causes of death and disability in the United States and are an incredible drain on our health care system. 85 percent of the money spent on health care goes toward people with at least one chronic condition. Some of these conditions include diabetes, heart disease and obesity – conditions that we know we can prevent.

The American people remember the old adage and they know that an ounce of prevention truly is worth a pound of cure. That is just one of the reasons why helping to prevent disease and illness also has strong public support. A poll released this week by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found that Americans overwhelmingly rank prevention as a top priority for health reform.

Preventing illness and disease is an essential component of health reform. We know that it isn’t enough to provide coverage and keep doing the same thing. Health reform can help stop diseases before they happen. It can make our homes, our communities and our families healthier, safer and stronger. It’s time to make preventing illness and disease the foundation of our health care system.

Dear Friend,

Last week was National Small Business week, and I would like to talk about a top concern of those Americans that run and work in these companies: health care.

Small businesses employ millions of Americans and are the engine of job growth.  But as a new study illustrates, health care costs are crippling their ability to offer and sustain health insurance for their workers– limiting their competitiveness and shifting costs to families.  A new Urban Institute study entitled, “Health Reform: The Cost of Failure” shows that, over the next ten years, small businesses’ spending on premiums will increase by a projected 47%, despite a  precipitous drop in coverage meaning that small businesses will be paying more to insure fewer workers. Families will bear an even greater burden.  For those families who keep their health insurance, the cost of premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures will increase by 68% and account for 20% of their income.   Even more daunting is that, by 2019, the uninsured population will increase to 65.7 million people, or 23.2% of the population.

The driving force behind the erosion of health coverage among small businesses is cost.  In the past two years more than half of small businesses reported switching to plans with higher out-of-pocket costs for employees.  From 2000 to 2008, the percentage of small businesses offering coverage dropped from 68% to 59% in businesses with 3 to 199 workers and from 57% to 45% in businesses with 3 to 9 workers.  High health care costs are not only adversely affecting employees but also small businesses themselves.  Forty percent of small businesses report that health care costs are hurting other aspects of their business such as increasing employee turnover.

This is one reason why the President and I believe that health reform cannot wait.  Reform is necessary to reduce the long-term growth of health care costs for small businesses.  Assuring all Americans quality affordable care will improve workers’ health and productivity – a win-win.  And, nearly half of small business owners agree that reform is needed it is now time to act.

For more on small businesses’ concerns and priorities, see Helping the Bottom Line, the Health Care Fact Sheet, and read a recent Wall Street Journal article on small businesses.   To join me in this effort, please sign up.

Sincerely,

Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services