The Sometimes Forgotten Costs

I recently followed up with Dr. Jonathan Murrow, the cardiologist that spoke with our class, to get some more information about how the health care system can prevent the expensive costs that come with the trend of frequent rehospitalizations in this country. I am continually trying to figure out what programs are being implemented to work out this problem. During the conversation, I was again reminded of the collateral costs related to CVD and other chronic conditions. In addition to the high cost of an ER visit, which is estimated at almost $33,000 dollars per heart failure related incident in Georgia, our society must endure the long-term costs of repeat hospitalizations, extensive care-giving and loss of job productivity.

As we increasingly hear big-dollar numbers relating to health care reform, I think it's important to consider all of the manageable and preventable costs, which tally up at much more than drug costs and doctor visit bills. I did some research to figure out some expenses that also sap resources in this way. According to a CDC study that compared bills of healthy vs. obese people, obesity cost the U.S. an additional $147 billion in 2008. A study by the National Criminal Justice Reference Service says that addictions cost the U.S. almost $67 billion dollars per year, including loss of productivity. This means that everyone pays almost $1,000 a year to deal with drug addiction. And, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, mental illness costs the U.S. about $150 billion per year.

Wow. There is a lot more going on in health care than what happens in a doctors' office and hospitals. I think that the danger of looking at health reform in an overarching way that mainly looks at dollars is that we can overlook the fact that daily and even hourly decisions, and those of everyone else in this country, will affect the bill we will all be footing over the years.

Of course, all of this can not be prevented, but it seems that there must be things we can do to mitigate these soaring costs, since many of these problems deal with behavioral issues. When we make a laundry list of all of the costs associated with health problems, I think it can be easy to forget that leaving someone out of a job, or having them in a position where they have to rely on others for physical and financial support affects all of us a lot more than just tax dollars.