With health care expenditures soon to reach 19 percent of U.S. Gross National Product (GDP), the House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee announced the formation of a bipartisan caucus to investigate the escalating incidence of chronic disease and how best to stop it.
Rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer’s disease “are skyrocketing,” said Health Subcommittee Chair Vern Buchanan (R-Fl) in his opening statement on September 18.
“According to the American Cancer Society, in the coming year we’re expecting to hit a bleak milestone: the first time new cases of cancer in the U.S. are expected to cross the two million mark,” said Buchanan. “This daunting number tells me that we need to invest in technologies that will be able to catch these chronic diseases early and often.”
High Costs
Buchanan also expressed alarm over obesity rates, now comprising 45 percent of adults and 20 percent of children. Doctors are increasingly treating obesity with semaglutides, which cost between $1,029 and $1,430 a month. Waiting until people get sick wastes lives and money, Buchanan told the committee.
“In Israel, for instance, they live five years longer than the average American and spend less than 8 percent of their GDP on health care,” said Buchanan. “We need to learn from other nations that are prioritizing prevention and healthy living and lifestyles, to ensure our country and people can live longer, healthier, and happier lives.”
Obesity is even undermining national security, says Buchanan.
“Shockingly, according to the CDC, just over one in three young adults aged 17 to 24 are overweight and unable to serve in our military,” said Buchanan.
Nutrition Literacy
The newly formed Congressional Preventive Health and Wellness Caucus will focus on educating Americans on nutrition and better lifestyle choices, Buchanan told the committee.
The issue requires new ways of thinking, says Katy Talento, president of KFT Consulting and a former top health care advisor to President Donald Trump’s Domestic Policy Council.
“The most encouraging step in decades with respect to addressing our extinction-level chronic disease epidemic is the ‘Make America Healthy Again’ initiative now being spearheaded by the partnership between two glass-breakers: Robert F. Kennedy Jr and President Trump,” said Talento.
“I was floored to see the recent four-hour roundtable held by Sen. Ron Johnson that brought together leading experts in these issues,” said Talento. “It’s a miracle that the truth is finally going mainstream about the unholy alliance between Big Food, Big Chemical, Big Ag, and Big Health Care, and about the capture and corruption of our regulatory agencies by these same interests.
“Expect the corporate profiteers off our suffering to unite with the Deep State to try to stop the MAHA agenda in its tracks,” said Talento. “It will take a whole-of-government fight, led by the White House with steely-eyed resolve, to win this war, but it can be done,” said Talento.
AnneMarie Schieber (amschieber@heartland.org) is the managing editor of Health Care News.
