KBTX/Bryan - Healthy Living in the Twin Cities Heard by Washington's Leaders

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KBTX/Bryan - Healthy Living in the Twin Cities Heard by Washington's Leaders

By: Steve Fullhart

Local leaders would likely call their march on Capitol Hill a workout, but with them is a message that the Brazos Valley, as well as the nation, needs to get healthy and easier health care.

In fact, it's in the more common workout that might lie the solution, in part, to high health care costs.

The Chamber of Commerce, who puts together the delegation currently taking local issues to The Hill, has been pushing local initiatives for workplace workouts, wellness programs that get employees to get fit.

Senator John Cornyn agrees that such programs are necessary. The Texas Republican and Democratic Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa have introduced the Healthy Workforce Act of 2009. A key component of the bill is tax incentives for companies that offer wellness programs. The senators cite studies showing the rapid rise of health care spending by businesses.

Wellness programs are obviously easier for bigger companies.

"But if you're a small business and you want to give a health club membership to your employees to exercise and keep your weight down and stay productive, that's not deductible," Cornyn said, "so one of the things that we're trying to do is level that playing field."

"Obviously, putting more money into employee benefits is a difficult area, so incentivizing it would definitely be beneficial to them," said Dena Gaskin with the Chamber. "It's going to be cost effective. It's just that initial cash outlay."

The bill remains in the Senate Finance Committee awaiting action, though a Chamber march on Capitol Hill made sure Texas representatives knew local leaders want it to workout.

Also part of the health care push from local leaders is electronic medical records, and the hopes that a national system can be created to ease patients' pain of moving records to and from clinics and hospitals.

At College Station Medical Center, you'll find the latest medical technology and some electronic records, but paper is still very handy.

Much of the problem lies in the fact that there are so many different systems being used currently by medical facilities.

"You can't get Windows to talk to Mac without doing some special things," said Eric Wilke with CSMC. "It would be the same thing here, so it would work if we all had the same EMR (electronic medical records)."

Of course, money is an issue as well.

"Just for the emergency department, if you look at what a system costs, it can be anywhere from half a million dollars just to install, so where do you get that money," Wilke said.

It just might come from Washington, which is something the Chamber continues to push for: federal funding for a change to EMR systems.

"It is expensive, so there are a lot of start up costs associated with it, but I think it's one of the keys to managing the chronic diseases, which will help bring down costs, help reduce suffering and misery," Sen. Cornyn said.

He finds himself a big part of the health care debate, one which includes talk of a nationalized system for records.

While Cornyn certainly wasn't on board for much of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, he says there is money in there to take records from paper to a more productive format.

"This will help cut out duplicative and unnecessary tests," Cornyn said. "You, literally, will be able to carry your medical records around in a compact disk or a DVD."

That, again, is an expensive prospect. Plus, Wilke cites studies that show there are inefficient electronic systems that make more errors than the paper counterpart.

"There's some hard questions that need to be answered, but if we can figure it out and get it right, I think it has great potential to do good things," Wilke said.

But for a Chamber and local leaders who are putting emphasis on health, funding for a national electronic system has been lifted to the top of their agenda push.

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