The fund was created as part of the Affordable Care Act to invest $14.5 billion over the next 10 years in disease prevention efforts by supporting community and clinical prevention efforts, strengthening local health departments, and supporting science and research.
Unfortunately, the current system isn’t set up to incentivize further spending on efforts like the Prevention and Public Health Fund.
If fewer people were sick, doctors would treat fewer patients, and there would be a lower demand for medications. However, this would hurt the businesses of doctors, insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and others who earn their living from treating sick people.
Yet, according to the APHA for every 10 percent increase in programs like those the Prevention and Public Health Fund invests in, deaths due to preventable diseases decrease one to seven percent. Similarly, a $2.9 billion investment in those same programs would save an estimated $16.5 billion annually within five years, the organization said.
Although a shift in health care spending would hurt the people who earn their living off it now, it would save the country money in the long run, and more importantly make America healthier.
Recently unsealed court documents have revealed allegations that the insurance company Humana Inc. is guilty of committing healthcare fraud.
Humana controls Medicare Advantage health plans for more than three million people, making it one of the largest operators of private Medicare plans in the country.
The lawsuit, unsealed this February, was filed by Florida physician Mario Baez in October 2012. It accuses Humana, Baez’s former partner Dr. Isaac Thompson, and several other doctors who worked for Thompson and Baez of “upcoding” patient diagnoses for years.
