Harkin Pushes Comprehensive Wellness Initiative to Fight Chronic Diseasse, Obesity and Reduce Health Care Costs
HARKIN PUSHES COMPREHENSIVE WELLNESS INITIATIVE TO FIGHT CHRONIC DISEASE, OBESITY AND REDUCE HEALTH CARE COSTS
HeLP America Act to Promote Healthier Lifestyles, Emphasize Prevention
Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) today unveiled major legislation to transform our health care system and reduce health care costs by giving Americans access to better preventive care and consumer information to encourage healthier lifestyles. The HeLP America Act of 2005 provides all sectors - child care centers, schools, workplaces, health care providers and communities -with incentives and the tools they need to reach the goal of making America a healthier place.
"Promoting healthy lifestyles and preventing chronic disease will not be accomplished quickly or simply," said Harkin. "Achieving these goals will require a comprehensive approach that, rather than focusing on sickness, encourages wellness and integrates healthy choices into individual's daily lives.
Chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes are the leading causes of death and disability in the United States, and the economic impact is staggering. Seventy-five percent of the $1.8 trillion the United States spends healthcare annually is spent on treating chronic diseases. Yet less than five percent of annual health care spending in the United States goes toward chronic disease prevention..
The HeLP America Act consists of the following:
Title I: Healthier Kids and Schools
More kids across America are suffering from overweight and obesity. Since 1965, there has been a 300 percent increase in the number of children ages 6-11 who are overweight. These conditions will contribute to increases in diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other chronic conditions and have a negative impact on long-term health.
One goal of the HeLP America Act is to improve the overall wellness of our children by promoting sound nutrition, increasing physical activity, helping diagnosis and prevent mental illness, and providing alternatives to the junk foods that are sold in vending machines and on a la carte menus in schools. Title I will help kids develop good habits by putting fresh fruits and vegetables in school, and taking junk food out. It also takes on the tidal wave of ads in schools and on TV pushing junk foods on our kids. Finally, to promote optimum nutrition for our youngest children, this legislation expands Early Head Start and includes a "baby-friendly hospital" initiative for hospitals that promote breastfeeding.
Title II: Healthier Communities and Workplaces
Title II will assist businesses and communities in offering a range of opportunities for people to start leading healthier lives. Initiatives include providing tax credits to businesses that offer comprehensive programs to promote employee health, expanding research of mental and behavioral health risks, encouraging new road construction that accommodates bicycles and pedestrians, providing grants to train preventive medicine and public health physicians, and creating a more "mom-friendly" breastfeeding environment in the workplace.
Title III: Responsible Marketing and Consumer Awareness
Having accurate information about the nutritional value of the food people eat is the first step toward improving overall nutrition. In an effort to increase consumer information and promote a more responsible marketing environment, the HeLP America Act would implement mandatory menu labeling at chain restaurants, and restore the FTC's rulemaking authority to issue restrictions on unfair advertising to children. The bill will also give the FDA authority to reduce smoking by preventing tobacco advertising which targets children.
Title IV: Reimbursement for Prevention Services
At times, preventative screenings for chronic diseases and mental health disorders, counseling to improve nutrition and physical activity, and treatment for substance abuse and smoking cessation can be cost prohibitive. Title IV would provide reimbursements and expand current federal health care programs to pay for more preventative services and counseling. In addition, this legislation requires Medicare to develop a payment methodology for hospitals and chronic care organizations to perform preventive outreach and treatment for chronic diseases before they become fully developed. This change can save Medicare money over the long term.
Harkin has promoted preventive healthcare initiatives throughout his career, including increased access to breast cancer screenings, the school fruit and vegetable pilot program, the Menu Education and Labeling Act (MEAL), and tobacco control. Harkin recently spent time visiting and talking with schools, employers and other community organizations in Iowa and nationwide who are doing innovative things to promote wellness. He also held a hearing in Iowa to learn more about the medical and financial costs of chronic conditions such as obesity, tobacco use and mental illness.
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Senator Harkin's Healthy Lifestyles and Prevention (HeLP) America Act
Title I. Healthier Kids and Schools
Ø Harkin Fruit and Vegetable Program: Expands the program to more schools and creates healthy cooking demonstrations.
Ø Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection: Requires USDA to update its definition of "foods of minimal nutritional value," which has not changed in over 30 years, to conform with current nutrition science.
Ø Baby Friendly Hospital Education and Training Initiative: Establishes a voluntary certification process for hospitals that adopt certain practices that promote breastfeeding for newborns.*
Ø Expand Early Head Start to provide services that promote positive mental and physical health for disadvantaged infants, toddlers, and pregnant mothers.
Ø Mental Health Services for Children: Supports a grant program to provide mental health screenings and prevention programs at schools, and a grant program to provide community-based services for parents of children at risk for mental health problems.
Title II. Healthier Communities and Workplaces
Ø Healthy Workforce: Provides tax credits to businesses that offer comprehensive programs to promote employee health; also grants for small businesses.
Ø Healthy Community Grants: Grants to communities and faith-based organizations to establish coordinated chronic disease prevention programs.
Ø FDA authority to regulate tobacco to protect public health.
Ø Preventive Medicine and Public Health Physician Grant Program to increase the number of doctors trained in preventive medicine.
Ø Working Well and Living Well with a Disability: Grant programs to facilitate healthy lifestyles for people with disabilities.
Ø Complete Streets Incentive program: Creates standards and incentives to provide for sidewalks, bike lanes and intersections on new and reconstructed federal and local roads.
Ø Healthy Workplace for New Moms: Requires employers with 50 or more employees to make reasonable efforts, in break time and space, to allow mothers to express milk or to breastfeed; and establishes a federal taskforce to identify ways by which to improve the ability of new mothers to breastfeed when they return to work.
Ø National Assessment of Mental Health Needs: SAMHSA will enhance existing public health data collection systems to include information on mental and behavioral health status and risks.
Title III. Responsible Marketing and Consumer Awareness
Ø Restaurant Nutrition Labeling: Requires nutritional information on menus of chain restaurants.
Ø Protect Kids from Unfair Junk Food Advertising: Restores the rulemaking authority of the Federal Trade Commission to issue restrictions on advertising with respect to children.
Ø Food Advertising in Schools: Gives Secretary of Agriculture authority to prohibit the marketing and advertising of food in schools participating in the School Lunch or Breakfast programs.
Ø Tobacco Marketing: Eliminates tax deductibility of tobacco advertising, and funds counter-advertising.
Ø Infant Formula Disclosure: Requires infant formula manufacturers to place a label on infant formula products stating that human breast milk is the ideal method of feeding infants.
Title IV. Expansion and Reimbursement for Prevention Services
Ø Medicare expansion and co-payment elimination: Coverage of counseling for nutrition and physical activity, mental health screening, substance use including smoking cessation and injury prevention.
Ø Smoking cessation: Coverage required under Medicare, Medicaid, and FEHBP.
Ø Preventive Health Services for Women: Authorizes the Wise Woman program that provides breast and cervical cancer, osteoporosis and cardiovascular screenings for low-income women.
Ø Medicaid Reimbursement in School-Based Health Care Settings: Encourages Medicaid providers to reimburse licensed school based health care providers for services that are reimbursed for those same providers when working in other settings.
Ø Medicare Disease Prevention Demonstration Project: First project designed to pay providers for disease prevention programs aimed at individual risk factors associated with diabetes, heart disease or other chronic disease.
Title V. National Health Promotion Trust Fund
Ø Creates a trust fund through offsets to pay for new programs in the bill and expands funding for existing prevention programs such as PEP and the CDC Divisions of Nutrition and Physical Activity and Adolescent School and Health .
Title VI. Research
Ø Expansion of Research Regarding Obesity: Expand on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force on Obesity conclusions to conduct and expand research on obesity prevention, treatment, and control in the primary-care setting with various populations utilizing nutrition and physical activity counseling.
http://harkin.senate.gov/news.cfm?id=237846