From the IHRSA Business Report
Greetings!
Earlier this afternoon, First Lady Michelle Obama announced new preventive health care benefits made available under the Affordable Care Act. Dr. Jill Biden, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, together with doctors, nurses, families, and leaders from the health community, joined the First Lady at the live White House webcast.
Preventive care helps Americans stay healthy, avoid or delay the onset of disease, and lead productive lives and help reduce costs. Under the Affordable Care Act, new insurance plans are required to provide preventive care without cost-sharing, which will remove financial barriers for many Americans to preventive services such as mammograms, colonoscopies and immunizations, obtaining BMI measurements, and help prevent disease and reduce costs.
Chronic and often preventable diseases, such as heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, are responsible for seven of ten deaths among Americans each year and account for 75 percent of the nation's health spending. In addition, obese individuals have health care costs 39 percent above average.
Some remarks from Mrs. Obama during the webcast:
"We know the best way to keep our families healthy and cut health care costs is to keep people from getting sick in the first place."
"Good preventive care will help to tackle the issue of childhood obesity in America today."
"Treating obesity-related disease costs $147 billion a year."
"Ultimately each of use needs to be a part of the solution and take responsibility for own health."
"We need to use all the available tools to help our kids live happy healthy lives."
Yesterday, as part of continued efforts on her Let's Move campaign against childhood obesity, Mrs. Obama hosted an online discussion to raise awareness for the growing epidemic. The video chat coincided with the launch of the new LetsMove.gov. IHRSA has supported the First Lady's leadership in tackling the problem of childhood obesity since its inception, pledging the fitness industry's ardent backing of her efforts in a February letter to Mrs. Obama shortly after the Let's Move campaign was launched.
Mrs. Obama advised parents to frame exercise in a fun way to help encourage children to get off the couch. 'I think we should talk about physical activities as play, which is actually what it is,' she said. 'I think our goal is to make sure that we're not treating this like a task or a penalty. That's the trick with kids, getting them to do things that are good for them without them realizing it.'
Regards,
Joe Moore
President & CEO, IHRSA
