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New Study Looks At CBO Scoring of Diabetes Prevention
A study published yesterday in Health Affairs has re-generated buzz around Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scoring of chronic disease prevention. Co-authored by former HHS and CBO officials Michael O’Grady and Jim Capretta (who also authored a recent PFCD white paper on the subject) and two...
Sep 03, 2009
Ken Thorpe Discusses Health Reform on CNN
Ken Thorpe appeared on CNN American Morning on August 18, to discuss health care reform and chronic disease. Watch the clip. We've got to go back to the basics. Three-quarters of what we spend in this country in health care is linked to patients that have chronic health care conditions like...
Aug 19, 2009
Prevention: Divine Intervention in the Third Act? I Think Not.
Despite Charles Krauthammer’s suggestion in Friday's Washington Post that President Obama and Congress have become our modern-day Euripides, prevention is not the "deus ex machina" that he claims. Prevention has been a core part of the health reform agenda since candidate Obama ran for office– and...
Aug 17, 2009
White House Discusses Health Reform Options
Ken Thorpe participated in a White House round table discussion on primary care options on August 10.
Aug 11, 2009
Disease prevention not just screenings
This weekend, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) sent a letter to Rep. Nathan Deal and other Congressmen regarding the scoring of prevention, in response to a July 16 question by Deal on the subject. Faithful to CBO’s previous statements, the letter said that investing in prevention won...
Aug 11, 2009
Falling Short of What’s Needed
Saturday’s Wall Street Journal editorial does an excellent job explaining the obesity epidemic in the U.S. and how it’s driving much of the cost increases in health care. The Journal cites many statistics that illustrate the scope of this problem, but let me add two more: The doubling of obesity...
Aug 04, 2009
CBO Gauges Health Reform Legislation
Doug Elmendorf hit the nail on the head last week when he said that the current health care reform bills inadequately address rising health care costs. “The changes that we have looked at so far do not represent the sort of fundamental change, the order of magnitude that would be necessary to...
Jul 20, 2009
A step in the right direction
Last week the Senate HELP Committee passed their health reform bill, “The Affordable Health Choices Act,” the most comprehensive health reform bill we’ve seen to date. The committee’s passage of the bill speaks volumes about the progress being made towards achieving comprehensive health reform...
Jul 20, 2009
Different data, same message
Two important studies were released this week—a study from the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality on the rising rates of obesity in the U.S. and a New England Journal of Medicine study which found that total health spending for patients who received prescription drug coverage under...
Jul 10, 2009
Enough With the Fruit Salad Already
David Harsanyi is back at it, going on about how preventive care doesn’t save money. The problem is, of course, that, just like before, he’s combining apples, oranges, and kiwis. Makes a nice fruit salad – healthy! – but a bad argument. So, again, let’s try to set the record straight. One of...
Jul 07, 2009

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