US health care reform debate overlooking 'The Real Story'

As US lawmakers debate health care reform, business innovator Lou Weisbach and Clinton White House health care advisor Richard Boxer say that they see a glaring, missing element of the forthcoming health care legislation: reducing health care costs - and saving lives - by preventing and curing disease.

The chilling reality, they note, is that the percentage of Americans who die of cancer today is unchanged from 1950. There is nothing in current health care reform legislation that provides for real change in the way health care is approached in the USA. Chronic diseases affect over 110 million Americans and account for nearly 75% of the more than $2.1 trillion spent on health care in the USA, they note.

Mr Weisbach and Dr Boxer want to change that: they are co-creators of The American Center for Cures (ACC) initiative, which proposes that a "Manhattan Project" or "Moon Shot"-like urgency be applied to cure or prevent disease. Their idea is revolutionary: the creation of The ACC - led by a cabinet-level Director of the Cures - housed within the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The ACC's mission is to cure a minimum of three diseases within the next seven years.

Diseases for focus - chosen by a "Cures Council" - may likely focus on Alzheimer's, autism, various types of cancer, Crohn's disease, depression, diabetes, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson', and genetic diseases of childhood (such as cystic fibrosis).

The ACC concept has support from numerous lawmakers and health care experts, as well as citizens who are signing a petition at www.americancenterforcures.org to have the initiative included in health care reform legislation.