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REMARKS BY:

Michael  Leavitt, Secretary

PLACE:

Washington, D.C.

DATE:

Friday, April 20, 2007

Remarks as Prepared at National Osteoporosis Foundation


Thank you, Dr. [Ethel] Siris [National Osteoporosis Foundation president]. It’s a pleasure to be here.

I’m especially pleased to be talking about improvement in an area that can make a big difference in so many people’s lives. 

Osteoporosis is a problem we face together as a nation.

One of my favorite New Yorker cartoons illustrated this problem well.  It is a sketch of a very large bathroom sink. The water has been left running, and the sink is overflowing.

At the base of the sink, little men in lab coats are working feverishly with mops and buckets. But one little man in a lab coat is climbing up the leg of the sink, hand over hand, to do the obvious:  turn off the faucet. 

Prevention—That’s the lesson here.  This is clearly a lesson we need to take to heart in health care.

Preventable chronic diseases are sweeping the nation at all levels of society. 

Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, osteoporosis—they are all contributing to serious health consequences, severely reducing quality of life, and adding to health-care costs that are spiraling for all of us.  Until we learn to approach prevention and staying healthy with the same rigor we do treatment, we’re not going to get ahead of these health-care problems.

That is why I’ve made disease prevention one of my top priorities as Secretary of HHS. We need to develop a culture of wellness in this country. But this requires change of self , not just of our health-care system.

We know that we have to take better care of ourselves. I’m talking about diet, exercise, and our personal habits.

More than 75 percent of all medical costs result from treatment of chronic diseases. Yet, as you know, many chronic diseases, like obesity and osteoporosis, can be prevented and managed. 

That is why, later today, HHS will launch a bus tour to reach seniors and other Americans with important prevention information. We will go to all 50 states and partner with disease prevention groups; mayors and state officials; and grassroots, faith-based, and community organizations.

So we’ll be reaching out with important prevention messages for people of every age:

  • Be physically active each day—get up and move,
  • Eat a nutritious diet,
  • Take advantage of medical screenings, and
  • Avoid risky behaviors.

We’ll be at community events, health fairs, and roundtables on prevention in every state. Community by community, we will reach out to seniors encouraging them to know their health histories; to take Medicare’s prevention checklist to their doctors; and to talk to their doctors about Medicare’s preventive services.

CMS is also educating providers on Medicare’s coverage policies for bone health measurements and strategies for patient education. This will help ensure that all eligible women on Medicare receive the medical support and payment they need to prevent and treat their bone health problems.

As you know, around 10 million Americans over the age of 50 have osteoporosis, and 34 million more are at risk. One and a half million Americans suffer a related fracture each year, often leading to further health complications.

One out of every five women over 50 who has a hip fracture dies within a year. For many others, a hip fracture means the loss of independent living. Today, one in five seniors with a hip fracture ends up in a nursing home within a year.

This is a growing problem. As baby-boomers continue to age, the number of hip fractures in the U.S. could double or triple by 2020. Already, hip fractures alone account for 300,000 hospitalizations in this country each year, and the cost of caring for fractures due to osteoporosis is already $18 billion each year, and growing.

It is clear that comprehensive prevention efforts are needed for all age groups.

I appreciate the work that you are doing to help improve trends in bone health. Your Five Steps to Bone Health and Osteoporosis Prevention give seniors a simple action plan to stay healthy.

The plan puts the focus in the right place:  adopting healthy habits for a healthy life. Osteoporosis should not be an inevitable part of the aging process, nor should dealing with it be a purely medical procedure.

As we round the corner to Osteoporosis Awareness and Prevention Month in May, I appreciate your efforts to continue reaching as many seniors as possible with these messages.

I’d also like to thank you for your help on two initiatives.

The first is the Osteoporosis and Related Bone Diseases National Resource Center at NIH, which we created with your help at the National Osteoporosis Foundation and others. This center is a key vehicle for spreading messages about osteoporosis to all Americans.  

You also partnered with us at HHS to launch the National Bone Health Campaign in 2001. The campaign is still underway, led by the cartoon character Carla and her friends. It promotes optimal bone health among preteen girls to help them lower their future risks of osteoporosis.

Through other activities, we are also reaching out to individuals, clinicians, and communities to emphasize the importance of calcium and weight-bearing exercises. And our Administration on Aging is working to provide meals that promote bone health for eligible seniors.

Just as important as these outreach efforts is continuing to build the scientific knowledge that gives us an edge over osteoporosis. 

Toward that end, we are also working to increase our understanding of the biology of bone-density issues.

  • We currently have fourteen components of NIH conducting research to further our understanding of the causes, diagnosis, and preventative strategies of osteoporosis. 
  • The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is funding research that has taught us how new medications have increased recognition and treatment of osteoporosis. AHRQ also supports research on results, comparative clinical effectiveness, and appropriateness of medicines, devices, and health-care services. They plan to release a report on a comparison of therapies for low bone density later this summer.   
  • The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force updates osteoporosis screening recommendations and is hosted by AHRQ.

This work will take us a long way toward our shared goal of protecting people from osteoporosis and other chronic diseases.

Preventing disease must be a national priority. The costs in suffering and dollars are too high.  Yet, the truth is, prevention will not be possible if people don’t have access to a basic insurance plan at an affordable rate.

Most people without insurance don’t have a regular doctor.  Without a regular doctor, they don’t get the preventive screenings for avoidable conditions. And when a condition develops, they often put off seeing a doctor until it becomes too late.

Then they often go to the emergency room where care costs more. It’s also no substitute for preventive medicine or the regular care that people with chronic conditions need.

In his State of the Union Address, the President proposed two important initiatives critical to increasing access to health insurance on the national level.

One was a tax break for people who buy their own health insurance. This would help millions of people who are not able to afford insurance. It would also provide an incentive to choose affordable plans and make healthy choices an important part of every life.

The second proposal was an offer to work collaboratively with states that are coming up with innovative ways to cover the uninsured.  I have traveled around the country over the past several months, and I can tell you that there is a torrent of activity taking place at the state level to cover the uninsured.

I have met with 40 governors and am working with Congress to find ways to help. We have discussed partnerships using existing authority and other ways to meet our goal of each state having a basic health insurance plan available at affordable prices.

More than a dozen states are already organizing legislative proposals aimed at shrinking the number of people without insurance: Indiana, Michigan, Texas, New Jersey, Missouri, Washington, Oregon, California, Massachusetts, Louisiana, Connecticut, Vermont, and New York; and many others are working on their own unique solutions.

Some of them are not yet announced. Each is a little different, but they are all innovating and finding unique solutions.

I believe that change is coming. In the next five years I believe we can achieve our national aspiration that every American have access to a basic insurance policy at an affordable price.

With broader coverage, more Americans will receive the regular care and screening they need earlier in life to prevent conditions like osteoporosis. That’s when our research into causes and cures for such diseases will really pay off.

Knowing how to treat a disease is only half the battle. The other half is getting people to commit themselves to fighting it. As I said earlier, it requires a change of self. Extending access to all Americans will help us do that.

Thank you for your commitment to preventing disease, and for your efforts help improve the lives of millions of Americans. Our goal is the same—better health, lower cost for all Americans.

Last revised: August 29, 2008