The first wealth is health

We understand that our community and country are facing an extraordinary economic situation. Many organizations are attempting to find solutions to an increase in demand for services and scarce supply of funding.

While short-term budgetary decisions must be made, we should consider the long-term impact of these decisions on the health and wealth of our community.

What we know from our collaborative work in the community is:

• When people lose access to affordable primary and preventative care services, people will delay seeking care -- and their health declines.

• When a person’s health situation worsens and begins to impact their ability to work or be a responsible parent, they are faced with the need to seek primary care services. If timely access is not available, people go to emergency rooms for non-urgent reasons.

For example: Our best estimate is that in 2007 an additional $40 million in payments was spent in our community for non-urgent health care services provided in the emergency department, when compared to those same services being provided in a primary care center.

• When people receive non-emergency services in emergency rooms, it adds to the hidden cost of health care to those with health care insurance coverage.

For example: at least $1,000 of an average family’s health insurance premium is required to offset the hidden costs of our current health care situation.

The bottom line is the worst of both worlds occurs when people lack access to affordable primary care – people who need care are sicker and people with health insurance end up paying even more for the hidden costs.

Our community has worked collaboratively over the past few years to increase primary care capacity to serve an additional 20,000 people in our community. Yet we still have at least 71,000 people who lack a regular source of health care.

We should avoid reductions in local funding for primary and preventative care – the outcomes are sicker citizens and higher costs to the community.

During challenging times like we are currently facing, its hard to make needed investments for a better future. Health care serves both current and long-term needs.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once stated, “The first wealth is health.” The return on investing in primary and preventative care can be measured in both the health of people right now as well as the economic health of our community in the future.