My Main Street News

I got a call on a Thursday afternoon from the White House Office of Public Liaison inviting me to a roundtable discussion on rural health care reform at the Executive Office Building the following Monday. Conference calls were not an option, so recalling my friend and colleague Dee Davis’ admonition: “When the White House calls, you go,” I got the ticket and went.

HHS Rural Report

The May 4 meeting, fourth in a series of stakeholder gatherings, was chaired by Nancy-Ann DeParle, Counselor to the President and Director of the White House Office of Health Reform, and featured Dr. Mary Wakefield, Administrator at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Tina Tchen, Director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, and Representative Mike Ross (D-AR) who serves on the Subcommittee on Health of the Committee of Energy and Commerce. It coincided with the release of a new report from HHS entitled “Hard Times in the Heartland: Health Care in Rural America.”

It was my privilege to be there representing the League of Rural Voters and the National Rural Assembly, alongside farmers and ranchers from around the country, leaders from the National Farmers Union, National Family Farm Coalition and Farm Bureau Federation, and experts from the National Rural Health Association, Rural Policy Research Institute, Fishing Partnership Health Plan, Center for Rural Affairs and others.

The 90-minute discussion focused on the rising cost of health insurance to farm families and the shrinking number of health care professionals practicing in rural America. Rep. Cox made it clear that major reform of the system was necessary to keep the costs of Medicare and Medicaid from swamping the federal budget.

As I waited for my turn to speak, I got thinking about the sad spectacle of dialysis clinics springing up across the country in response to the explosion of obesity-related diabetes, which is of course, completely preventable. How much does all that treatment cost?

I recalled the school lunches that were part of my experience some 40 years ago: balanced meals made fresh each day (with USDA-provided ingredients) by a half dozen real cooks in the kitchen. The dishes were not disposable and you ate what was in front of you (except for the beets!).

I also remembered when Pepsi and Coke took over the high school vending areas to help the school “earn” money, and marveled years later at how city schools turned over their food service to Pizza Hut and Taco Bell.

And now we have an epidemic of obesity, diabetes and heart disease that is killing us, literally and figuratively. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

So I thanked the Administration for the opportunity, noted the burgeoning costs of diet-related health problems like obesity, diabetes and heart disease and stressed the need for a systems approach to health care reform.

I encouraged us all to focus attention on improving diet and nutrition among youth and senior populations as one strategy for reducing long-term health care costs – a strategy which would also expand local and regional markets for food and farm products.

I finished by acknowledging that President Obama has done a great job of connecting the dots on a number of complex issues already and reiterated my hope that the Administration would continue to help rural America connect the dots on this challenge as well. Healthy food, healthy kids, healthy economies, healthy communities: we have the opportunity to make progress on all our goals simultaneously.