A blog covering the health/care ecosystem and people.

Health and wealth are intimately related. This week’s (October 24/31 2007) Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is devoted to poverty and human development. Another important publication this week highlights the relationship between income and health: EBRI has just published its the 2007 Health Confidence Survey, the Institute’s tenth annual report on how Americans perceive the US health system. Together, these two documents shine a light on the health/wealth relationship. This relationship holds true whether we’re talking about rural India, Zambia, Beijing, east LA or Ames, Iowa. In JAMA, take a look at Dr. Steven Woolf’s commentary, Future Health

  There are many forms of plastic in health care. No, I’m not talking about new polymers used for medical implants. I’m talking about financial services. A new card from Humana and Republic Bank illustrates the continuing integration of consumer personal finance and health care. The new VISA card, private labelled as the HumanaAdvance card, will be offered to Humana’s employer groups for enrollees to use at hospitals, doctor and dentist offices, drugstores and other locations providing health-related products and services. Of course, as with all plastic, this card comes with its own fine print: 0% interest rate (APR) on

I’ve been looking at health care through a retail lens for some time. Perhaps it’s that I’m a rag trader’s daughter, or that I’ve been known to like shopping, that I have clients in consumer goods, or that I understand how tiered drug pricing impacts the consumption of medicines (answer: it’s all of the above). I’ve just reviewed the latest trend report from PricewaterhouseCoopers and TNS Retail Forward on the future of retailing. My mind is connecting the dots between the future of retail and the American health care consumer. Four future retail trends are already embedding in health care

Where you live, who you work for, and what color you were born are predictors of whether you have health insurance in America. New data from those hard-working, non-partisan researchers at the Employee Benefits Research Institute (EBRI) have published their latest portrait of insured, and uninsured, Americans. The report is based on data from the March 2007 Current Population Survey of the U.S. census. For the details, see EBRI Issue Brief No. 310, October 2007. Geography is destiny as a factor for being insured. The highest level of uninsurance is in the south central US, where about 20% of the

For 50 years, the oral health of Americans had been improving. By 2004, the trend reversed.The state of oral health in the US is on the decline, with 100 million people lacking dental insurance and cavities going unfilled. This, while so many millions are spending on tooth whitening and breath freshening.Oral health is an integral part of a person’s overall health. According to the Academy of General Dentistry, there is a relationship between gum (periodontal) disease and heart disease. A recent study on periodontal disease and atherosclerosis confirmed this finding. flossing showed evidence to support flossing to fight disease. Over

The annual financial burden of health illiteracy costs between $106 and $238 billion. This is enough money to cover the 47 million uninsured people in America.   That metric, and many other insights, were published this week in an important new report called, Low Health Literacy: Implications for National Health Policy. The report was written by Dr. John Vernon, a professor of finance at the University of Connecticut, and three colleagues from the University of Central Florida, George Washington University, and an executive from Pfizer. This research was sponsored by Pfizer, which has been promoting health literacy as part of

Consider, a definition of value: Worth in usefulness or importance to the possessor; utility or merit: as in, the value of an education.Hey Mr. Webster, how about, “the value of health?”This week, the ground beneath Philadelphia and Research Triangle Park moved as the announcement of Andrew Witty’s nomination to the post of CEO of GlaxoSmithKline shook the headquarter offices of the second biggest pharmaceutical company in the world. Among his American colleagues, Witty was generally not considered to be the front-runner in the triple-threat horse race launched by J-P Garnier, current honcho, to head the company. Among the 3 contenders

Covering the uninsured tops Americans’ health care priorities for presidential candidates. That’s the #1 health issue for Democrats and Independents; managing health care costs is the top health policy concern for Republicans. This, according to the latest Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive poll published on October 4, 2007. Health care coverage is emerging as a front-burner for the American middle class. 61% of Americans said that health care ‘works’ better for the very poor and the rich versus the middle class. Furthermore, nearly 2/3 of Americans believe that health care in the U.S. works just fine if you are healthy

It is no surprise that chronic disease costs, but the burden of chronic disease is staggering: pegged at $1 trillion, according to the Milken Institute’s latest report, An Unhealthy America: the Economic Burden of Chronic Disease. This report highlights the sobering statistics about this critical cost driver in our system. The chronic diseases most burdensome to the economy including pulmonary conditions, hypertension, mental disorders, heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. What factors are contributing to America’s heavy chronic disease burden? The Milken team identifies them as: > Air quality > Alcohol > Cholesterol > Illicit drug use > Obesity (BMI ?

While we Americans might personify a kinder, gentler nation if we believed in health equity, it’s really health insecurity that’s driving current health reform efforts in the U.S. The lead op-ed in the 1st October Financial Times (FT) editorial page forecasts, “Reform is coming to US healthcare.” The column discusses last week’s Congressional vote on the state children’s health insurance program (S-CHIP). The FT editors then talk about how all of the Democratic presidential candidates have plans for, at a minimum, near-universal health care, an issue that was “considered toxic for the (Democratic) party” just a few years ago. Although

What do you get when you mix one part Michael Moore with a preeminent health economist and the head of the American health insurance lobby? A very lively hour on the Oprah Winfrey Show.Today’s Oprah show featured a heated discussion about health care in the U.S. The title of the show was Sick in America: It Can Happen to You. Oprah and the audience saw Michael Moore’s Sicko before the show was taped. Oprah confessed to her millions of viewers that the movie opened her eyes to the problems of access in U.S. health care. A panel was convened to

The trend toward early retirement has reversed, and today 2/3 of workers age 50-70 say they plan to work into retirement or never retire. The AARP released its 2007 report card on the best employers for workers over 50, so boomers, take note. My dad worked until he was 84, so I have that role model front-and-center in my own future-view on work. In an important study conducted in 2006, Towers Perrin and AARP projected that, by 2016, there will be a labor shortage in the most industrialized countries, the Group of Seven (G7) nations.* Call it a “grey-drain.” But

Two new important publications point to the emerging world of very personal health care: one, courtesy of your tax dollars at work, from the Department of Health and Human Services; the other, published on 21st September in Science. Personalized Health Care: Opportunities, Pathways, Resources is a white paper from DHHS that provides a straightforward primer on genomics and health IT as the dual foundations of personalized health care. The DHHS rightly notes, that, “Personalized health care is information-based health care.” However, one area that needs more detail in the report is the short paragraph on page 13 titled, “The Patient

As the 2008 Presidential candidates offer up their plans for health reform, it’s interesting to watch where stakeholder interests are lining up. No doubt we will see version 2.0 of Harry and Louise soon from the insurance industry. The pharmaceutical lobby represented by PhRMA has already published PR on the positive role of Medicare Part D covering drugs for older Americans, some positive spin supporting the industry’s good works.There’s a new stakeholder taking an early, assertive stance in the health reform debate: the American Cancer Society. It’s as if the ACS anticipates the entrance of Harry and Louise, Jr., onto

U.S. News and World Report is well-known for its Top 100 “best” lists assessing hospitals, doctors, and health plans. Watch for it to further build its position as consumer health information provider for Americans by expanding into a comprehensive health portal online. U.S. News published this cover in November 2004. So the magazine is no newcomer to this role. However, the publication and its editors (and savvy financial management) recognize the opportunity to exploit their brand position in the consumer health information space. This isn’t just about arming Americans with health information to be ‘smart.’ This is a smart move

I’ve been researching the topic of therapeutic hypothermia (TH) for cardiac arrest in the past couple of weeks on behalf of a client (we at THINK-Health work with the full range of stakeholders, which keeps our thinking fresh and the practice continually fascinating). So when Buffalo Bills player Kevin Everett received TH immediately following severe spinal cord injury on the football field, I closely followed his story. I have a dear cousin who became spinal cord injured due to a diving accident several years ago, and so the topic is of very personal interest to me. It is great news

The average income for a family of four in America reached $48,200 in 2006, which was good news from the Census Bureau released last month. The bad news is that the average cost of health insurance for a family of four will hit $12,106 this year, according to the annual report on employer-sponsored benefits from the Kaiser Family Foundation. While the cost increase was lower this year than last — at 6.1% — this is still more than twice the rate of general infaltion, which was 2.6%. And workers’ wages increased only 3.7%. Thus, health insurance costs continue to rise

We’re losing ground on drug safety. This is sobering news, according to the Institute for Safe Medication Practices, based on a study published this week in the Archives of Internal Medicine. The number of serious adverse drug events more than doubled between 1998 and 2005 in the United States, as did the number of related deaths. The FDA says that an adverse drug event is, “an injury resulting from the use of a drug….” including: • Harm caused by the drug (adverse drug reactions and overdoses) • Harm from the use of the drug (including dose reductions and discontinuations of

Health care is as American as apple pie, at least when it comes to spending. The usual metric for the macroeconomy is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is defined as the market value of all goods and services produced in a country. Arithmetically, the calculation is, GDP = Personal Consumption + Investment + Government Spending + (Exports – Imports) Personal consumption is the largest single component of the economy. Health care comprises over 17% of personal consumption expenditures, and housing, 15%. The third largest line item in personal consumption is food, which eats up 14% of personal consumption expenses.