Health Costs and our Economic Health
President Obama’s position for health reform has been closely aligned to the nation’s economic health. His argument: healthcare costs consume about 18% of our GDP and until we get health care costs under control our nation’s economic health is greatly impacted.
A recent study by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation extends the argument beyond health reform and has examined the impact that job loss has on health conditions. The key findings in the study include:
- The likelihood of individuals who lost a job through workplace closure reporting fair or poor health increased by 54%.
- The odds of developing a new health condition rose by 83% among those who had no preexisting health problems.
- Even when individuals found new jobs, they continued to have an increased risk of new stress-related health problems.
David Williams, staff director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation added this thought. “Where and how we live, work, learn and play have a greater impact on how healthy we are than the healthcare we receive.” I am not sure that I agree with Mr. Williams completely but I think there is definitely merit to his point. Beyond looking at health reform as the delivery system and a cost containment effort, we also must examine how other environmental factors contribute to our health and therefore, contribute to costs.
May 18th, 2009 at 11:27 am
To follow up David William’s thought, Bruce Liption, in his book “The Biology of Belief,” says the same thing - it’s our environment that impacts our beliefs and our beliefs impact our cells. Our cells are constantly taking in about 20 million bits of data a second from the environment. This is our experience moment to moment.
It’s not just the treatment. Lipton concludes that treatment is a small part of what matters - it’s a small part of the environment. Earl Bakken, of Medtronic fame, estimates his technololgy is only about 20% of what supports healing the rest is “something else.”
The environment of places we seek out for our healthcare also matters, as much as where we live, work and play. As the healthcare experience is strategically designed to support healing (sending more of those messages to our cells), we’ll feel better. This ultimately helps to control costs for everyone.