Mind & Body at The Aspen Health Forum

The 2009 Aspen Health Forum—presented by the Aspen Institute and Time magazine—welcomed scientists, doctors, health care professionals, investors, public health advocates, policy experts, and interested members of the public for three days of conversation and exploration about everything from the science of sex to new frontiers in biotechnology. Of course, one particular topic was on the minds of most participants—and most Americans.

“For us to pass sustainable health care reform, a cultural shift has to occur within every sector of the health care system,” said Mark Ganz, president and CEO of Regence BlueCross BlueShield, at the 2009 Aspen Health Forum. It was late July, and debate was raging in Washington and around the country over health care reform. And, in Aspen, speakers and attendees tackled the future of health care head-on. But, unlike the town-hall meetings around the country where conversations on the topics often disintegrated into polarized shouting matches, the Institute gathering was marked by civility, nuanced discussions about complex topics, and multifaceted approaches to the issues—and even the occasional finding of common ground.

Cost
“Something called health care reform will be passed and signed into law,” said John Porter, chairman of Research!America and vice president of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. “The question is: What’s going to be in it, and can we pay for it or can we not?” Cost was on many participants’ minds as they tried to wade through the raft of issues presented by the health care debate. “In the next ten years, the United States is going to spend $35 trillion on health care,” said Obama health care advisor and former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. And, he warned, that spending would only come from one of three places: from the government by way of taxes, from the private insurance system, and from people’s out-of-pocket expenses.

Wellness
One area where many participants could agree was on the importance of wellness care.
“Cost containment starts with prevention and wellness,” said Daschle. Dr. Mehmet Oz, vice chair and professor of surgery at Columbia University, in a conversation with Rick Stengel, managing editor of Time magazine, offered a number of changes we should all make in our own lives, from “sweating an hour and a half or so a week” to strategic snacking. He also noted that 20 percent of medical care in the United States is “useless and wasteful,” and pointed at the audience: “That means you!” The sentiment was echoed the next day by educator and advocate Randy DeFrehn, who said, “Freedom of choice is a real problem in health care reform; what people want isn’t necessarily best.”

World-famous mind-body expert Deepak Chopra, founder and president of the Chopra Center, discussed wellness and preventative care through the prism of happiness. Reminding the audience that the “goal of health is happiness,” Chopra explained that “happiness has biological consequences.” Therefore, the health care system—and indeed all national systems—should be doing more to ensure the happiness of people the world over.

A Global View
In addition to US health care reform, a major theme of the conference was global health. Dr. Anthony Fauci, a leader in the global fight against HIV/AIDS and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said: “The 21st century will be a century of pandemics. Some will be modest, some devastating. Together they are likely to cause far more death than wars, terrorism, or impact from global warming.”

Meanwhile, former Irish President Mary Robinson, who leads the Institute’s program Realizing Rights: The Ethical Globalization Initiative, talked about the devastating condition of women’s health globally, saying, “Pregnancy is life-threatening in much of the world,” thanks to a shortage of 4.5 million health care providers across the globe. Returning to the discussion of cost, Robinson said that the developed world is inadvertently stealing caregivers from the countries that need them most and depriving developing nations of the health care they deserve. Added Robert Sebbag, an advocate for access to medicine at Sanofi-Aventis, “Americans just don’t consider [the Third World] in crisis.”

Which Way Forward?
Despite the serious topics on the table at Aspen Health Forum, the tone remained optimistic. Former US Representative Billy Tauzin (R-LA), now the president and CEO of PhRMA, praised President Obama’s attempts to democratize the process of health care reform rather than presenting a pre-formulated plan. “It’s a much more messy course,” he said, “But there’s more hope for consensus than with single plan … [as we] take a sick-care system and turn it into a health care system.”

Dr. Donald Berwick of the Institute for Healthcare Improvement was more blunt: “We know how to get health care that works, but our system tries to please all stakeholders, and that doesn’t work.” But it was Julie Gerberding, former director of the Centers for Disease Control, who reminded the audience that health care is everyone’s responsibility. “Health does not happen in the health care system,” she said. “It happens in our home, our schools, and our communities.”