Health Progress and Policy

Prevention & Wellness

The United States spends more on health care than any other nation. Yet, we are far from the healthiest people in the world. Many Americans are plagued by preventable diseases that have a devastating impact on their health and quality of life. Our lack of health also contributes to the nation’s soaring health care costs. For example:

• In 2002, 65 percent of adults were considered obese or overweight. This is a 50 percent increase since 1980. The prevalence of overweight adolescents in 2002 was triple the rate in 1980.    
• Health care spending among the obese was 37 percent higher than among normal weight individuals, according to 2001 estimates.
   
• In 2003, 24 percent of men and 19 percent of women smoked. Cigarette smoking causes approximately 440,000 deaths annually in the U.S. and costs the country over $150 billion each year in health care costs.

• In 2004, studies estimate that over 105,000 hospitalizations of children for asthma could have been prevented with timely care and prevention.
  

• According to 2004 data, 30 percent of women age 40 and older reported having had a mammogram within the last two years. It is estimated that more than 40,000 women died from breast cancer in 2005.
  
• Roughly 35 percent of the elderly population in this country does not receive yearly flu vaccinations. On average, 36,000 die from influenza complications per year in the U.S.

Our health system is partly to blame. It focuses on treating these diseases after they occur, rather than promoting good health in the first place. In part, this is because of financial disincentives. Since insurers have no guarantee that people will remain in their plans, they have little incentive to invest in keeping people healthy over an extended period of time.

A New Model for Preventive Services

Along with providing affordable coverage to all, containing costs, and maintaining choice, the nation needs to make health promotion and disease prevention a national priority. A focus on wellness, not sickness, is essential for a 21st century health system.

To remove the perverse incentives from the current system, the Center for American Progress proposes carving preventive care and health promotion out of private health insurance. This would create an innovative, new nationwide system that aligns incentives and delivery of preventive care, rewarding outcomes. Real reform should emphasize policies that encourage individuals to exercise, maintain a healthy diet and lifestyle, and use preventive services in a timely manner. This will allow Americans to secure a better value of their health care dollar through improved coverage of preventive and wellness services.

Updated: February 9, 2006