EDITORIAL: Health advice

On Thursday, your Leader will contain a new publication titled Health. It contains a variety of stories, some about health care and medicine, and others about lifestyle changes to help you lead a healthier life.
Health will be published twice a year: in July and January. We’re already looking for ideas for our January edition. If you have a suggestion, or wish to comment on Thursday’s edition, please call us at (320) 587-5000 and ask for Doug or Matt.

Maintaining or improving our health and managing health care costs are important to most of us. Some things we can control ourselves:

• We can quit smoking.
• We can watch our weight.
• We can exercise regularly.
• We can get adequate sleep.
• We can reduce stress factors in our lives.
• We can see our doctor for regular checkups.

We hope you’ll find the information in Health helpful to do all of the above.

Beyond what individuals control
Other things are beyond our direct control because they fall in the public policy realm. In February, two state government task forces issued reports with recommendations to the Legislature on how to control health care costs and help Minnesotans lead healthier lives. Some of those recommendations were adopted by the Legislature. Many more recommendations will likely be considered in the future.

The recommendations make a lot of sense. They include:
• Enacting standards for physical activity in schools to help reduce the percentage of children who are overweight or obese. Anyone over 50 will likely recall the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, established during the Eisenhower administration to encourage children to be healthy and active. The council’s work doesn’t get much attention anymore. It should.

• Encouraging community land use and comprehensive plans to incorporate places for physical activity. Anyone know what a Vita course is? It’s a fitness trail, usually in a park, with a dozen or so stations featuring illustrated instructions for exercises. They’re popular in Europe, and there should a place for them here, too. They make routine exercises fun.

• Increase the “health impact fee” on tobacco products. It’s a controversial idea, but studies indicate price increases on cigarettes influence smokers to quit.

• Require all Minnesotans to have health-care coverage. Minnesota already does quite well in this area, compared to other states. The plan is to have 98 percent of Minnesotans covered by 2013.

• Develop the position of a midlevel dental practitioner to work with a licensed dentist. Just like nurse practitioners and physician assistants provide excellent care and help control costs, these dental practitioners could do the same.

• Expand funding for the training of primary care doctors, especially for those who will serve rural areas. Fewer and fewer of Minnesota’s small towns have doctors, causing problems for patients who need to travel long distances for basic medical care. Minnesota needs more well-trained health-care providers and they need to be more accessible. We also need adequate funding for nursing schools, to address faculty shortages.

• Establish ways for consumers to easily compare providers’ costs. If doctors really believe that medicine is a partnership with their patients, they need to make price information more readily available. Most patients facing a major medical procedure have no idea how much their bill will be until weeks after they’ve returned home from the hospital. That’s simply wrong.