Acronym

The 2010 Healthcare Association Conference ended this afternoon with Aaron E. Carroll, MD, MS, associate professor of pediatrics and the associate director of Children's Health Services Research at Indiana University School of Medicine. His session, "Looking to the Future of Health Care Reform: Myths Versus Facts" picked apart some of the often-heard statistics about healthcare reform as well as outlining the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Some of the more interesting statistics had to do with how the United States compares with other industrialized countries (he used G8 countries for comparison) when it comes to healthcare spending and quality. It's not surprising to hear that for healthcare spending per capita versus GDP per capita that the United States spends most. But when it comes to metrics of quality, the United States has the lowest life expectancy among other G8 countries; the highest infant mortality rate in any industrialized country; the highest maternal mortality rate than any other country; and middling quality disease care, including treating cancer. People cherry pick which statistics to tout, said Carroll. The United States is great at treating breast cancer and colon cancer, but more people in the country die from lung cancer than those two cancers combined. Carroll summed it up by saying that for a healthcare system that costs a fortune, middling- or low- quality healthcare doesn't make sense.

Carroll also presented five myths in healthcare. Myth one: We're older, we smoke more, we drink more, and we eat more. In fact, the United States is comprised of a younger population, smokes the least out of G8 countries, drinks less ... but we do eat more. But, Carroll explained, though obesity leads to a slightly sicker population, obesity is not driving the cost of healthcare in the country. Obesity is part of the myth that disease is prevalent in the United States, but it actually accounts for about $25 billion which is small compared to other healthcare costs.

A final myth of interest from Carroll is that tort reform will impact the cost of healthcare. In fact, he said, tort reform may lead to a 10 percent reduction in malpractice and is only a sliver of the pie.

Timely for today's session, The New York Times picked up one of Carroll's graphs he presented.