Those of us in the health care industry (both delivery and financing) are pleasantly surprised, albeit cautiously optimistic, to learn that health care spending has slowed rather dramatically in recent years. In fact, for the first time ever, the percentage of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) attributable to health care has decreased from 17.3% in 2011 to 17.2% in 2012 ($2.8 trillion). Fellow health care stakeholders may find it interesting that in 1960; health care consumed a mere 5% of our nation’s GDP. Put another way, in 2012 health care spending grew by 3.7%, which is virtually identical to the spending percentage growth in 2009, 2010, and 2011. By contrast, in 2002, health care spending grew by a whopping 9.7%.
OBESITY:
– has roughly the same association with chronic illness as 20 years of aging
– is associated with a 36% increase in inpatient and outpatient healthcare spending
– is associated with a 77% increase in medications
– is the number two (2) cause of preventable death in the U.S!!!
But until just recently, obesity was NOT considered a DISEASE. In June of this year (2013), the American Medical Association’s (AMA) House of Delegates voted to officially declare obesity a disease. To quote AMA board member Dr. Patrice Harris,
As someone who makes his living in the healthcare and health insurance industries (for nearly 30 years), I am often asked the question – how can we fix what is broken in our healthcare system, and assure that every citizen has access to care? More recently, I get the question – do you believe the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will be successful?
In attempting to answer these, and other healthcare reform related questions, I always start with the fundamental issue that our nation struggles to address; which is, do we desire a government run, universal, single payer system (see Canada, much of Europe, etc.), or a market based, largely private run, profit based system, such as the type we presently have?
