Jason Mattera and reading comprehension
The question is “I was wondering, which portions of the health care bill lower costs, is it the provision giving 7 billion to fund jungle gyms or the provision mandating that employers provide time off for breastfeeding?”
Before we get into the actual substance of the question I’d like to point out the fallacy here. This is a complex question fallacy, Franken is essentially being asked to choose between alternatives where a satisfactory answer would require a lot more freedom and considerable time. It should also not be lost on people that Mattera specifically picked his options so that they would appear to increase costs not lower them, also increase them in, what he would consider to be, wasteful ways.
Ironically the actual answer to his question is that both could lower costs in the long run, though they would increase costs in the short term. Well at least the “7 billion to fund jungle gyms” would increase costs. The mandate on employers to provide time off for breastfeeding doesn’t really increase costs for the government at all, while lowering costs in the long term because it is a well established fact that breastfed babies are more likely to be healthier throughout their lives.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071105103017.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18198630
http://www.who.int/child_adolescent_health/documents/9241595230/en/index.html
So now to the substance. Al Franken responds by asking Jason Mattera to show him in the bill where they give $7 billion to fund jungle gyms. I don’t know what version of the bill Jason Mattera was using but he apparently finds this on page 1184 of HR 3590. I went to the Government Printing Office’s website and downloaded the latest version of HR 3590, the PDF has an interesting feature, it begins on page 119, but it’s nice enough to tell me that, at least the latest version of HR 3590 (the one that is currently law) is only 906 pages long, it also has the full length of the document numbered from 1 to 906 in parenthesis.
It’s a good thing that Jason Mattera gets a good shot of the page he’s looking at because I was able to search the pdf for the phrase “creating healthier school environments” and I found what he was looking at on page 565 (447 of 906). I don’t know how many people noticed what was immediately obvious to me, and apparently, Al Franken.
Nothing on this page mentions the number 7 billion. If anyone knows where he got that number from I would love to see it, but he didn’t get it from HR 3590. I didn’t see the $7 billion on that page so first I tried to look at the page before it. Subtitle C section 4201 – Community Transformation Grants. Nothing on this page says anything about $7 billion for jungle gyms either. In fact nothing in the entire section states a specific funding amount for the Community Transformation Grants. I also couldn’t find anything in any other section of the bill that stated a specific funding amount for the Community Transformation Grants. This has me thinking that Jason Mattera made the number up to make his position sound more impressive.
Does it, though? Let’s assume that the bill does indeed allocate $7 billion for these Community Transformation Grants, is that a bad investment? Also it’s amusing to me that Jason Mattera doesn’t see providing physical activity infrastructure as something the federal government should do. Amusing as it is something the federal government does. The idea behind providing infrastructure for active living and healthier lifestyles, among other things to this end, is to promote long term health to decrease demand for costly health related services.
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/trends.html
http://www.webmd.com/cholesterol-management/obesity-health-risks
http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/publications/facts/obesity/en/
http://www.win.niddk.nih.gov/publications/health_risks.htm
http://science.jrank.org/pages/4817/Obesity-health-effects-obesity.html
Essentially the $7 billion investment in healthy living related infrastructure, nutrition education, etc could potentially pay for itself and then some in the long term if successful in getting people to try to be healthier and being more aware of how their activities and habits effect their health and how that, in turn, effects their lives. This is another example of a potential long term saving with a short term cost. It speaks to prevention. It’s both important, and relevant to the subject of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and consistent with the bill’s goals of prevention.
Al Franken was absolutely correct, though, the question was inaccurate, and that’s at best.
EDIT: For anyone interested in the estimated costs associated with obesity in the U.S. check out this link:
http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/causes/economics.html
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Tags: $7 billion to fund jungle gyms, Al Franken, economic consequences of obesity, HR 3590, Jason Mattera, lactation breaks, The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
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