Healthy communities are the real cost-savers

The proposed bills we've seen out of both the House and Senate make significant steps forward in bringing millions of Americans into a safe, sustainable insurance system. A robust public option is crucial to breaking the monopolistic stranglehold many insurance companies have in their regions. Coupled with meaningful efforts to prevent the worst excesses of the insurance industry, the public option will be a substantial step toward bending - and perhaps even reversing - the out-of-control cost curve.

But those headline-grabbing parts of the bill miss the real opportunity we have to make America and Americans healthier - and bring costs down, too. By building healthier places where people live and play we can help do what the health-care system is supposed to do: keep us from getting costly illnesses in the first place.

This fact is never more clear then when we look at the growing obesity crisis in our kids. As the principal adviser to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Center to Prevent Childhood Obesity, I can tell you that - unchecked - the obesity epidemic among our kids will cost us untold billions of dollars in future care for diabetes, heart disease, and other obesity-related illnesses. Our children need better health care, yes, but they also need better school lunches, safer parks to play in, and more nearby places to buy fresh food. Healthy communities create healthy kids - and healthy kids cost our health-care system significantly less.

Of course, this is not to say health care itself isn't important. The health reform package should also clear away some simple bureaucratic hurdles that keep two-thirds of the nation's eight million uninsured children from getting the health care they are already eligible for through the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Medicaid. Taking care of our kids' health on the front end makes far more fiscal sense than waiting for a trip to the emergency room.

The House and Senate versions of the reform bill both include some money to fund the community-level prevention efforts that will really make a difference, but there is still time to fund much, much more. The ultimate goal of our health system should be to support healthy people in healthy places. Cost-containment will be a crucial benefit that will come alongside a healthier America.

By Angela Glover Blackwell  |  October 26, 2009; 5:07 PM ET  | Category:  Health Care Reform , Health costs
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