This Week in CQ Researcher

Preventing Disease” by Nellie Bristol, Jan. 6, 2012



Can lifestyle changes reduce rising health care costs?

The U.S. health care system faces spiraling costs from chronic, or noncommunicable, illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and preventable cancers. But public health experts are discovering that just pushing people to change bad habits isn’t working. Instead, they are placing more focus on “making the healthy choice the easy choice” through such efforts as reformulating processed foods and making streets safe for walkers and bikers.

Some in Congress and the Obama administration made a big push for community-based disease prevention approaches, but concerns over the budget deficit could result in major cuts to the Prevention and Public Health Fund enacted as part of the 2010 health reform act. However, some say the government is overreaching in its war on obesity, and studies show that some prevention efforts add to health care costs.

The fight against preventable disease is not a U.S. problem alone. In poor countries, the biggest threats are the same ones afflicting Americans: lack of exercise, smoking and unhealthy diets.

• Does preventing disease save money?
  
• Should government encourage behavior change?
  
• Should the health care system focus more on wellness?
  

To read this article and others visit our Articles and Databases webpage and select CQ Researcher. Select the Off Campus Access link for information on how to access this resource from off campus locations.

This Week in CQ Researcher

Health-Care Reform
by Marcia Clemmitt, June 11, 2010

Is the landmark new plan a good idea?

The health-care reform legislation signed into law by President Obama on March 23 marked the biggest attempt to expand access to health care since Medicare and Medicaid were launched in the 1960s. The massive legislation will help 32 million Americans get health insurance coverage and bans insurers from denying coverage to those with preexisting illnesses. It also expands Medicaid to all poor people – except illegal immigrants – and gives subsidies to low- and low-middle-income people to buy insurance.

Opponents, including every Republican member of Congress, say the coverage expansion is simply too expensive, at a price tag of about $1 trillion over 10 years. They also say new fees and taxes to help pay for the coverage place too big a burden on currently insured people. Meanwhile, a group of state attorneys general is challenging the constitutionality of the law’s requirement that everyone buy health insurance.

• Is the new health-care reform law a good idea?
  
• Will people with insurance lose out under the new law?
  
• Will health care reform make care more affordable?

To read this article and others visit our Articles and Databases webpage and click on CQ Researcher. Select the Off Campus Access link for information on how to access this resource from off campus locations.

This Week in CQ Researcher

Health-Care Reform by Marcia Clemmitt,
August 28, 2009

Is universal coverage too expensive?

For the first time in 15 years, health-care reform has moved to the top of Washington’s agenda. A new Democratic president and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate have declared two major goals: increase coverage to near-universal levels and stop the huge, annual cost increases that are gradually putting health care out of reach for small businesses and low-income families.

Most proposals would subsidize insurance for low-income Americans and create new, government-regulated insurance markets for those without employer-provided coverage. One controversial scheme would create a publicly run insurance plan and require individuals to buy coverage. Congressional Republicans and some Democrats argue, however, that the plan would be too expensive and would allow government to meddle too much in health care. And at angry town hall meetings in August, some even charged, incorrectly, that the arrangement would establish “death panels” that would deny treatment to elderly and disabled patients.

• Could a single-payer health-care system work for America?
  
• Should reform include a publicly run health insurance plan?
  
• Would universal coverage be too expensive?

To read this article and others visit our Articles and Databases webpage and click on CQ Researcher. Select the Off Campus Access link for information on how to access this resource from off campus locations.

Issues and Controversies - Health Care

The issues surrounding the Public Health Care Option debate are explored this week in the Facts On File Issues & Controversies database. You can learn about key events in the history of public health care as well as the views from both supporters and critics of the public health care option.

Facts on File is available from any on campus computer, for information on off campus access visit our Off Campus Access website to learn how you can use this resource from home.

This Week in CQ Researcher

Wounded Veterans by Peter Katel, August 31, 2007
Is America shortchanging vets on health care?

Early this year, The Washington Post exposed shockingly substandard treatment for wounded veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center 's outpatient facilities. Follow-up investigations soon turned up evidence that problems extended beyond shabby conditions at the military's top-drawer hospital.

Amid the present uproar, a presidential panel on military and veterans' health care has called for far-reaching changes, but some critics say changes need to go deeper if the country is to live up to its promises to its troops.

• Does the Dole-Shalala commission have the best plan for improving veterans' care?
  
• Are veterans being shortchanged by DoD and VA to save money?
  
• Would more money solve most of the problems with veterans' care?

To read this article and others visit our Articles and Databases webpage http://www.swccd.edu/~library/articles.htm and click on CQ Researcher. Select the Access Off-Campus link for information on how to access this resource from off campus locations.