HEALTH REFORM AT A GLANCE:
PREVENTING DISEASE/ IMPROVING THE PUBLIC'S HEALTH (pdf)

Increased access to treatment, while vitally necessary for fixing our broken health system, is only part of the answer. True reform requires prevention investments to reduce the strain that disease and poor health exert on our health care system. These investments are extremely cost‐effective and beneficial, particularly as compared with treatment.

Preventive services can be divided into two general groups. Clinical preventive services are delivered to one patient at a time by a doctor or other health worker in a standard health setting. Community preventive services are delivered outside of this traditional clinical structure, and are frequently implemented across targeted groups.

Examples of Preventive Services

Clinical Preventive Services

• Cancer screenings (breast, cervical, colorectal, etc.)
• Daily aspirin use to prevent heart disease
• Adult and child immunizations
• Adult vision screening
• Hypertension treatment
  

Community Preventive Services

• Telephone "quit" lines to help smokers kick the habit
• Distribution of child safety seats
• Improving healthy food availability at worksites to reduce obesity
• Educating diabetics about blood sugar control (at churches, libraries, etc.)
  

The bill's Prevention and Wellness provisions present a comprehensive policy designed to ensure that all Americans will receive the state‐of‐the‐art in both clinical and community preventive services, undertaking a coordinated effort to make comprehensive prevention research, evaluation, and delivery a permanent part of the national landscape.

PREVENTION AND WELLNESS:

• Expand the capacity of two independent, advisory task forces -- the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) and the Task Force on Community Preventive Services (TFCPS) -- to undertake rigorous, systematic reviews of existing science to recommend the adoption of proven and effective services.
• Provide new investments in the science of prevention to further expand the base of information available for evaluation by the task forces.
• Deliver clinical preventive services by including USPSTF‐recommended services in Medicaid and insurance available in the Health Insurance Exchange.
• Eliminate cost‐sharing on recommended preventive services delivered by Medicare and insurance available in the Health Insurance Exchange.
• Deliver community preventive services by investing in state, territorial, and local public health infrastructure and by providing grants to implement TFCPS‐recommended services.
  

PREPARED BY THE HOUSE COMMITTEES ON WAYS AND MEANS, ENERGY AND COMMERCE, AND EDUCATION AND LABOR JULY 13, 2009

energycommerce.house.gov/Press_111/ prevention.pdf