TFAH Applauds 'Affordable Health Choices Act' for Making Prevention a Cornerstone...

TFAH Applauds 'Affordable Health Choices Act' for Making Prevention a
Cornerstone of Health Reform

WASHINGTON, June 10 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Trust for America's Health
(TFAH) today applauded the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor
and Pensions (HELP) for including strong prevention and public health
components in the Affordable Health Choices Act to improve the health of
Americans.

"Our nation will never be able to contain health care costs until we do a
better job of keeping Americans healthier and preventing disease," said Jeff
Levi, Ph.D., Executive Director of TFAH. "The HELP Committee should be
commended for making disease prevention and public health cornerstones of
health reform -- which would help spare millions of Americans from needless
suffering and save the health system billions of dollars in preventable costs.
The Affordable Health Choices Act goes a long way toward transforming the
country's current sick care system to a system that keeps people healthier in
the first place."

"Prevention holds the promise of improving health and quality of life while
lowering health care costs. This bill includes the ingredients needed to
ensure we get the returns that prevention offers, including a focused national
prevention strategy, a sustained public health funding stream, and
evidence-based programs that will be held accountable for improving health
outcomes," Levi continued.

Americans rank prevention as the most important health care reform priority,
and more than three-quarters of Americans (76 percent) support increasing
funding for prevention programs that provide people with information and
resources and creating policies that help people make healthier choices,
according to a new poll released this week conducted by Greenberg Quinlan
Rosner Research and Public Opinion Strategies. Investing in prevention is
popular across the political spectrum, with 86 percent of Democrats, 71
percent of Republicans, and 70 percent of Independents supporting investing
more in prevention.

Research shows that strategic investments in disease prevention can result in
significant savings in a short time -- reducing health care costs, increasing
the productivity of the nation's workforce, and helping people lead healthier
lives. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(CDC), a vast majority of chronic diseases could be prevented through
lifestyle and environmental changes. And a recent study by TFAH, entitled
"Prevention for a Healthier America," found that investing $10 per person per
year in proven community-based programs to increase physical activity, improve
nutrition, and prevent smoking and other tobacco use, could save the country
more than $16 billion annually within five years.

Some key public health and prevention components of the Affordable Health
Choices Act include:

ENSURING STRATEGIC, EFFECTIVE, ACCOUNTABLE DISEASE PREVENTION AND HEALTH
PROMOTION

-- Development of a National Prevention and Health Promotion Strategy
which
would set specific goals and objectives for improving the health of
the
nation through federally-supported prevention, health promotion, and
public health programs, and establish measurable actions and timelines
for meeting prevention and health promotion goals;
-- Establishment of a National Prevention, Health Promotion and Public
Health Council to provide coordination and leadership with respect to
prevention, wellness and health promotion practices, the public health
system, and integrative health care in the United States;
-- Establishment of an independent Community Prevention Services Task
Force
to review the scientific evidence related to the effectiveness,
appropriateness, and cost-effectiveness of community preventive
interventions to be published in the Guide to Community Preventive
Services;
-- Establishment of an independent Preventive Services Task Force to
review
scientific evidence related to the effectiveness, appropriateness, and
cost-effectiveness of clinical preventive services; and

-- Funding for research in the area of public health services and
systems,
including examining evidence-based practices relating to prevention,
focusing in particular on the National Prevention Strategy or Healthy
People 2020.

CREATING A STABLE, RELIABLE FUNDING STREAM FOR PUBLIC HEALTH AND PREVENTION
PROGRAMS AND SERVICES

-- Establishment of a Prevention and Public Health Investment Fund to
expand and sustain a national investment in prevention and public
health
programs at a level of $10 billion per year, over and above current FY
2008 levels of funding for prevention, wellness and public health.
Public health has been chronically underfunded for decades, and the
core
infrastructure of the system needs to be modernized.

SUPPORTING PREVENTION BOTH INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE DOCTOR'S OFFICE

-- Establishment of Community Transformation Grants under a Creating
Healthier Communities program, to support prevention outside the
doctor's office for community-based disease prevention, such as
programs to promote physical activity, create smoke-free environments,
and make nutritious food more affordable and available. These
initiatives make healthy choices easier choices for more Americans --
awarding competitive grants to state and local governmental agencies
and
community-based organizations for the implementation, evaluation, and
dissemination of proven evidence-based community preventive health
activities to reduce chronic disease rates, address health
disparities,
and develop a stronger evidence-base of effective prevention programs;
-- Establishment of a Right Choices program to provide access to proven
clinical preventive services, like immunizations and screenings, for
the
uninsured. In addition, the coverage section of the bill mandates no
copayments for evidence-based preventive services endorsed by
independent authorities;
-- Establishment of a Healthy Aging, Living Well pilot project to provide
public health community interventions, screenings, and necessary
clinical referrals for individuals 55 and 64 years of age;
-- Coordination of a workplace wellness marketing campaign to make
employers aware of the benefits of employer-based wellness programs;
and

-- Establishment of an oral healthcare prevention and education campaign.

Trust for America's Health is a non-profit, non-partisan organization
dedicated to saving lives by protecting the health of every community and
working to make disease prevention a national priority.
www.healthyamericans.org.

SOURCE Trust for America's Health

Liz Richardson, +1-202-223-9870 x 21, lrichardson@tfah.org, or Laura Segal,
+1-202-223-9870 x 27, lsegal@tfah.org, both of Trust for America's Health