Preventive Care

I read with interest the letters from Dr. Eric Naumburg and Dr. Jerry L. Levine. They both brought up interesting points. As a member of the Howard County Citizens Association's emergency-room committee I was closely involved with the organizing of the HCCA health care forum, and our main goal was to do something about the problems we have now. For a long-term solution, a single-payer system may well provide a solution to the problems of the...

Kaiser Permanente will open a new medical facility in Lansdowne next year as part of a long-term strategy to double the number of patients it serves in the Mid-Atlantic region in the next decade. The health care provider said Wednesday that the 130,000-square-foot building will take a one-stop-shopping, approach, with many specialty services offered under one roof, much like California-based Kaiser's facilities on the West Coast. Kaiser also will build three other new facilities by 2013 in Montgomery County, Fairfax County, Va., and Washington.

WASHINGTON -- As part of a broader effort this week to highlight his domestic agenda, President Bush will visit a Baltimore program tomorrow that emphasizes preventive health care services for poor people.Mr. Bush is scheduled to tour the East Baltimore Medical Center run by John Hopkins Hospital tomorrow afternoon and to address a group of business leaders later at nearby Dunbar High School. He will be promoting legislation that would make it easier for states to require patients whose health care is financed by Medicaid to enroll in similar programs.

Two Laurel dentists are offering a significant discount on dental services in tandem with helping their community food pantry. Dr. Maurice Miles and Dr. Daniel Melnick are assisting people in the community who have lost their dental coverage due to job loss by offering dental services at a fraction of their normal rate. For $75 patients receive oral examinations, x-rays and dental cleanings, with all proceeds going to Elizabeth House. The discount remains in effect until Nov. 30. http://www.dentistlaurelmd.com/index.php/ctegory/community .

Looking down his office driveway at the wooden ranch-style sign, the rusty horse trailer, chicken coop and Jerseys grazing in the back pasture, it might be difficult to place Dr. Melvin Stern on the cutting edge of a hot national issue.But walk up along the split-rail fence and into his crowded waiting room, and his agenda might be easier to understand."For every dollar spent immunizing kids, we save $10 in potential cost for caring for sick kids," says Dr. Stern, sitting in his cramped inner office overlooking the pasture.

WASHINGTON -- In a departure from longstanding practice in the health insurance industry, which has emphasized the treatment and cure of disease without paying for much preventive care, Blue Cross and Blue Shield offered yesterday to provide insurance for routine tests to detect cancer, heart disease and other illnesses.The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association issued guidelines for a lifetime schedule of medical tests to detect adult diseases and said it would offer coverage for these services.

The Clinton administration dispatched two top officials to Maryland yesterday to tout its health care reform package, each promising the plan would improve the health of the nation's children by covering preventive care.Carol M. Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, toured the lead poisoning prevention clinic at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, which currently treats 800 children who have high levels of lead in their blood.She said the reform package, which goes before Congress next year, would widen the use of blood-lead screenings by mandating insurance coverage.

Kaiser Permanente will open a new medical facility in Lansdowne next year as part of a long-term strategy to double the number of patients it serves in the Mid-Atlantic region in the next decade. The health care provider said Wednesday that the 130,000-square-foot building will take a one-stop-shopping, approach, with many specialty services offered under one roof, much like California-based Kaiser's facilities on the West Coast. Kaiser also will build three other new facilities by 2013 in Montgomery County, Fairfax County, Va., and Washington.

When half the beds at Johns Hopkins Hospital are filled with people whose illnesses or injuries could have been prevented, insurance coverage for preventive medical care seems to be common sense. Yet many insurance policies do not cover the simple procedures that can detect problems before they mushroom into serious, expensive conditions. Why? Because, too often, employers are not prepared to pay increased fees up front for savings down the line.Even so, this week the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association announced new guidelines for its 73 independent member plans, recommending that they provide coverage for routine screenings for such conditions as breast cancer, lung cancer, heart disease, diabetes, thyroid disease and osteoporosis.

A report card that evaluated the quality of U.S. health care has concluded that American adults receive only about half of the treatments recommended for both acute and chronic conditions and half the recommended preventive care. The Rand Corp. report, based on one of the largest studies of health care quality ever undertaken, says inadequate care translates into tens of thousands of deaths and unnecessary complications, posing "serious threats" to the public's health. The study was published in the journal Health Affairs.

Social conservatives have recently gone into fits over a report released last week recommending that insurance coverage include free access to birth control as preventive care for women under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. That insuring preventive care whenever possible - and thus saving far greater sums associated with unwanted pregnancy - might be construed as a bad thing defies reason, of course, but it's par for the ever-shallow national health care debate. It's no surprise that certain religious groups are upset because they perceive contraception as sinful.

I read with interest the letters from Dr. Eric Naumburg and Dr. Jerry L. Levine. They both brought up interesting points. As a member of the Howard County Citizens Association's emergency-room committee I was closely involved with the organizing of the HCCA health care forum, and our main goal was to do something about the problems we have now. For a long-term solution, a single-payer system may well provide a solution to the problems of the...

Republicans in Congress are wasting time and energy in dismantling President Obama's accomplishments of the past two years. Instead of getting their hollow heads together and draft a plan to create more jobs, they are just trying to destroy what is already done. That's called "self-annihilation. " We, the American people, are watching. I'm a senior citizen. As such, I completely oppose the Republican efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The act provides seniors with the freedom to get the care we need, including preventive care, lower cost prescription drugs, and Medicare that we can count on. The act frees Americans from the fear of insurance companies raising premiums by double digits with no recourse or accountability.

Uncompensated care at Maryland hospitals indeed drives up the health care costs for us all ( "Maryland hospitals struggle with uncompensated care," Jan. 12). We're fortunate to have community leaders who understand that improving access to care drives down these costs. Mercy Hospital CEO Thomas Mullen long has helped us save money by ending the homelessness of our clients, and Gov. Martin O'Malley has shown true leadership by expanding Medicaid for low-income parents well before national reform efforts.

Gov. Martin O'Malley gave the state more power to prosecute Medicaid fraud and established a patient-centered medical care program, among the 170 bills he signed into law Tuesday morning. "Today is a great day for health care," said Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, who lobbied for the bills on behalf of the governor. The Democratic administration said the measures will help the state reduce medical costs and improve care. The crackdown on Medicaid fraud comes after three years of unsuccessful attempts to pass the legislation, Brown said.

A new study that showed wealthier suburban areas such as Howard County are healthier than urban and rural parts of the state came as no surprise to public health officials, who point to disparities such as access to preventive care and good food. The ranking was made using data on the length and quality of people's lives, as well as smoking and other behaviors, social and economic conditions, and environmental factors. Howard, Montgomery and Frederick counties were at the top of the ranking, by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute.

WASHINGTON -- Americans are fatter, more stressed out and no likelier to get regular exercise than 10 years ago, warns a new poll that says the nation is descending into cholesterol hell.The national survey by Louis Harris and Associates comes as Hillary Rodham Clinton's White House task force seriously is considering making personal responsibility and preventive care building blocks of national health reform.Well, guess what, Mrs. Clinton? Most of us have health habits like your husband's.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Patients enrolled in health maintenance organizations were twice as likely to die of heart attacks as those in traditional health insurance plans, according to research presented at a meeting of the American Heart Association yesterday."

Lack of health insurance drives many people to under- and over-utilize health services in ways that are costly to taxpayers and damaging to their long-term health. The ranks of the uninsured are swelling each day, and we can expect the human and financial costs of inadequate preventive and primary care to rise in proportion. Recent local reports have highlighted a classic example: our health financing system's shortsighted investment in acute care over preventive care. This newspaper's recent call for expanding coverage for women who have had a poor pregnancy outcome does not go far enough.

Nine percent of babies born in Maryland each year are below normal birth weight - and those babies account for more than half of what the state spends on all births, according to an analysis released yesterday by a nonprofit advocacy group. Babies born weighing less than 5.5 pounds frequently require longer hospital stays, more intensive care and can suffer from lifelong physical and mental disabilities, costing the health care system in the long run. The lowest birth weight babies - those under 3.3 pounds - spend an average of 40 days in the hospital after birth, compared with just under three for normal weight births, according to the report by Advocates for Children and Youth.