The Connection Between Health Care Reform and Clean Energy

The always brilliant Michael Pollan had a piece in last week's New York Times, Big Food vs. Big Insurance, about how health care reform would get insurance in on the fight to change our food policy because keeping people healthy would finally become profitable. I believe the same would apply to clean energy. Here's why.

Pollution, greenhouse gases, reliance on fossil fuels, these things are all making us sick. Make healthcare profits relian on people staying healthy, and suddenly the health insurance companies have a big incentive to get in on the climate change fight. Don't believe me? Check out Environmental Threats to Healthy Aging, put out a few years ago by Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility and Science and Environmental Health Network. It explores the ties between environmental factors and the development of Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s Disease, and the 'western disease cluster'– diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome. Among the environmental factors explored:

Lead – Recent evidence links environmental lead exposure in the community to increased risk of cognitive impairment. For example, a recent study of elderly men found that the highest lead-exposed group had on average an additional 15 years of cognitive aging, compared to the lowest lead-exposure group. Several animal studies suggest that exposures in infancy and childhood may sharply increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease decades later. Evidence also implicates lead in increasing risk for Parkinson’s disease as well.

Air pollution – Recent studies show that air pollution is harmful to the brain, in addition to the lungs, heart, nose and blood vessels. This evidence is drawn from studies of brains of people living in highly polluted cities compared with those living in clean air cities. These studies found evidence starting at young ages of inflammation and cellular damage associated with both early Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

Pesticides – A large body of data links exposure to a variety of pesticides with increased risks for Parkinson’s disease. Evidence also links chronic low dose exposure to a number of pesticides – primarily in the work setting – with subsequent cognitive decline, such as impaired memory and attention. A study in France found that a history of occupational exposure to pesticides more than doubled the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease. Exposure to some pesticides has also been linked to dramatically increased risks for diabetes, prediabetes, and metabolic syndrome.

And among the reports recommendations:

 - An energy policy that reduces toxic emissions, promotes conservation and efficiency, curtails dependence on fossil fuels, and encourages more physical activity.

There's also this finding; tiny particles of air pollution -- less than one tenth the width of a human hair -- like pollution from the exhaust of trucks, buses and coal-burning power plants, can trigger clotting in the blood, causing heart attacks and strokes according to reasearh in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. And reasearch in the New England Journal of Medicine found that breathing diesel fumes interfered with heart attack survivors' ability to break down blood clots.

And there's more. Exposure to chemicals and diet are implicated in breast cancer, air pollution, and in particular radon, has been indicated in some lung cancers and agents like benzene, asbestos, MTBE, arsenic and a host of others are considered to increase cancer risk overall. And guess what, women have been shown to bear the brunt of environmental toxins in terms of deteriorating health.

So here's the thing. The health care fight is also an environmental fight. It's sad to say, but the health insurance companies need incentives to keep people healthy. They need incentives to look at the causes of illness and get in the fight to change things. The factors that cause climate change are not just warming the planet, they are making us sick right here, right now, today. In addition to lowering the cost of health insurance and making sure nobody in this country goes without proper health care treatment, wouldn't it be nice to have the health insurance companies on our side in the fight for clean energy?

Let's get health care reform done, with a public option, and then let's get a clean energy bill passed so we can all live better, healthier lives.