Worcester Business Journal

wbjournal.com | November 14, 2022 | Worcester Business Journal 17 PEACE OF MIND SPONSORS Arthur Cole Painting Corp. Atlantic Charter Insurance/Sallop Boston Textile Celtic Consulting Dalkia Aegis Energy Solutions Favulli Electric Husch Blackwell, LLP McKession Medical-Surgical Sassoon Cymrot Law LLC Ziegler NOTRE DAME HEALTH CARE 2022 EDUCATIONAL FORUM PRESENTING SPONSOR PARTNER IN CARE SPONSORS MEDIA SPONSORS The Catholic Free Press Worcester Business Journal (WBJ) WICN PRODUCTION SPONSOR Media Boss FLOURISHING SPONSORS Mintz Risk Strategies Company Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, US East-West Province Webster Five notredamehealthcare.org We are grateful to all of our contributors who made our 2022 Virtual Educational Forum a success. To learn how you can help support our mission, please contact Paige Thayer at pthayer@notredame healthcare.org or (508) 852-5800 x2509. The Enchantment Cure: The Healing Power of Irish Songs and Stories THANK YOU! To our sponsors for their generous support! SUPPORTING SPONSORS ProCare LTC Pharmacy Tufts Health Plan a Point32Health Company H E A L T H C A R E F O C U S at UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester, works as a women's health researcher with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She sees firsthand how health equity plays into people's lives. "I just spoke to a woman yesterday from North Carolina who's going to be doing our doula study, and she literally was crying on the phone when I was enrolling her into the study Life expectancy, as of 2021 Switzerland Iceland Norway Japan Sweden Australia Ireland Luxembourg Italy Israel South Korea New Zealand Spain Netherlands Denmark Belgium Canada Finland France Austria Germany United Kingdom Chile Costa Rica Portugal Slovenia Greece Turkey China Czech Republic Peru United States Source: Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development because she said her last birth was so bad, nobody listened to what her preferences were during labor and delivery. She was sort of roughly handled," Mattocks said. "She was just so overcome with emotion at the ability to have somebody support her during the labor and delivery process." The highest spending for the worst outcomes Americans pay a lot more for doctors office visits, surgeries, and other medical services compared to other wealthy nations. U.S. healthcare spending per capita is $12,318, more than twice the worldwide average of $5,829 and 64% higher than the country that holds the number two spot, Germany, according to McDonough's keynote presentation. e high cost of health care in the U.S. wouldn't necessarily be a terrible thing on its own, McDonough said, but health outcomes in the U.S., like life expectancy, are well below what they are in other wealthy nations. "ere's nothing wrong with spending this amount of money if in return for it we could brag that we have the best health care outcomes, and systems and quality in the world; and unfortunately, that's not what we have," McDonough said. U.S. life expectancy, which started a steady increase in 1980, plateaued starting around 2010 and took a nosedive when COVID-19 hit, McDonough said. e nation had around 20,000 drug-related deaths in 1999, a figure that had jumped to 96,096 by 2020. Diagnoses of diseases like obesity and diabetes have risen significantly since the mid-1990s. Even though healthcare costs in the U.S. are high, there is some good Healthcare spending per capita America Germany Switzerland Austria Sweden Netherlands Canada Australia France United Kingdom Kristin Mattocks, associate dean for veterans affairs at UMass Chan Medical School Stephen Kerrigan, president & CEO of Kennedy Community Health Center news, McDonough said. Because of the Affordable Care Act – specifically, provisions that went into place in 2014 – about 8% of the U.S. population was without health care in the first quarter of 2022, down from 14.9% in 2000. Most of the insured population has private coverage, he said. New federal legislation in the last two years like the American Rescue Plan Act and the Inflation Reduction Act include provisions for healthcare cost control. e IRA puts the federal government in the business of controlling prescription drug prices for the first time. ARPA cuts down the percentage of household income federal health insurance holders have to pay toward their premiums and extends coverage to people within 400-600% of the federal poverty level. "at's a big deal in terms of the affordability and stability of the Affordable Care Act that people had been trying to advance for about 10 years," he said. WBJ's Central Massachusetts Health Care Forum was held virtually on Oct. 27. The panelists (clockwise from upper left) were Fallon's Matthew Herndon, UMass Chan's Kristin Mattocks, Harvard's John McDonough, moderator WBJ Editor Brad Kane, and Kennedy Health's Stephen Kerrigan. 81.9 $12,318 $5,387 74.2 79.5 W PHOTO | KRIS PROSSER 81.8 81.7 81.6 81.4 81.2 80.8 80.7 80.6 80.5 80.5 80.5 80.3 79.9 79.6 79.5 79.3 79.3 78.8 78.7 78.4 78.3 78.2 78 77.9 77.5 75.9 75 74.3 74.3 81.9 $7,383 $7,179 $6,693 $6,262 $6,190 $5,905 $5,627 $5,468

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