New Health Initiatives Put Spotlight on Prevention
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: April 4, 2010
WASHINGTON — Amid all the rancor leading up to passage of the new health care law, Congress with little fanfare approved a set of wide-ranging public initiatives to prevent disease and encourage healthy behavior.
...Under the law, chain restaurants will have to provide nutrition information on their menus. Employers must provide “reasonable break time” for nursing mothers.
Health insurance companies will soon have to cover all recommended screenings, preventive care and vaccines, without charging co-payments or deductibles.
Medicare beneficiaries will get free annual physicals. Medicaid will cover drugs and counseling to help pregnant women stop smoking. And a new federal trust fund will pay for more bicycle paths, playgrounds, sidewalks and hiking trails.
...“When people have insurance,” Dr. Seffrin said, “they are much more likely to receive screenings and treatment. And they are more likely to seek screenings when they do not have to pay co-payments or deductibles.” As a result of such screenings, he added, cancers are more likely to be detected at an early stage, when they are treatable.
Under the law, insurers must provide coverage for all services recommended by an independent panel of experts, the United States Preventive Services Task Force, and cannot impose “any cost-sharing requirements.”
In addition, each Medicare beneficiary will be entitled to an “annual wellness visit,” in which a doctor can assess the patient’s condition, check for signs of Alzheimer’s disease and draw up a “personalized prevention plan” with a screening schedule for the next five or 10 years.
Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa and chairman of the Senate health committee, said: “We don’t have a health care system in America. We have a sick care system. If you get sick, you get care. But precious little is spent to keep people healthy in the first place.”
Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, said the measures, taken together, had immense potential to “save lives and to save money.”
...The new law also allows employers to give stronger incentives to employees who participate in programs to lose weight, stop smoking or improve their health in other ways.
Employers can offer rewards equal to 30 percent of the cost of coverage — up from 20 percent under prior law — to employees who participate in such programs.
“This is exciting,” said Helen Darling, president of the National Business Group on Health, which represents 300 large employers. “It puts the emphasis on health improvement, not just paying for illness and injuries.”...
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