HLC Members Promote the Value of Wellness

On July 31, HLC member organizations briefed nearly 100 congressional staffers and stakeholders on the value of wellness and chronic disease prevention polices on Capitol Hill. Representatives Michael Burgess (R-TX) and Donna Christensen (D-VI), both physicians, spoke passionately about the importance of prevention and wellness in the healthcare system.

Jonathan W. Scholl, Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer for Texas Health Resources and Vibha M. Jha, Vice President, Key Accounts – Commercial Businesses at Aetna gave presentations demonstrating the value that wellness and prevention brings to patient health and the economic bottom line. Mirella Berger, a National Diabetes Prevention Program Participant, represented Novo Nordisk and spoke about her personal experience and success with the program from a participant perspective.

The discussion was moderated by HLC President Mary R. Grealy, who remarked, “In principle, we want federal health care programs to emphasize wellness.  In practice, these programs don’t always score well when CBO does its evaluations.”

Both lawmakers also discussed legislation they are working on to allow leaders of the House and Senate Budget Committees the ability to request that CBO take a longer view when scoring wellness and prevention policies. This would allow the long term return on investment of prevention and wellness to be more clearly seen by Congress when weighing the economic merits of proposals.

Materials from the briefing can be accessed here.