Employer alliance is trying to reduce the cost of health care

On Health Care, Who Needs Congress? NYT Aug 2017

US Health care is provided to

147 million via employers

50+ million via Medicare

50+ million via Medicaid

If definine health care affordability as < 9.7% of income

Health care will NOT be affordable to HALF of the population in a decade

% of families where health care premiums and deductable will exceed 9.7% of income ]

Note: These costs do not seem to include

• employer share of health costs

• cost of time-off from job

• cost of training a new employee (if they are not able to return to work)

Health Transformation Alliance is a consortium of 41 employers trying to lower the costs of healthcare

HTA employers have only 6.5 million employees (4% of the 147 million listed above)

• mentioned in VitaminDWiki US Healthcare is 2X more expensive than in other countries - what can be done

Video by the CEO June 2017

• He mentions the impact of strokes and heart attacks to employers

  • Death within 2 years of surviving an ischemic stroke 10X less likely if high vitamin D – July 2017

  • Stroke 74% less likely if high vitamin D (7,295 women 20-50 years old) – July 2017

  • Major heart problems if have less than 15 ng of Vitamin D – Nov 2015

  • Ischaemic stroke – Vitamin D doubled survival (Injection followed by monthly 60,000 IU) – RCT Aug 2016

  • Major Heart attacks occur 40 percent more often if vitamin D lower than 7 ng – Feb 2013

  • Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes helped by Vitamin D – most 2013-15 studies agree

No mention of prevention on website or video

They appear to mainly focus on the following options for employers

• Reducing costs of drugs by combined purchase (hope to save $600 million over three years))

• Have employees go to the "better" hospitals

• Use of Dr. Watson (IBM) soon - such as increase Cancer diagnosis (but not Cancer prevention)

  "We and our employees spend more than $5 billion each year on four procedures and ailments:
      knee replacements
      hip replacements
      back pain
      diabetes"

• Press Release WellTok Aug 2018

---

VitaminDWiki

Knee pain reduced, faster recovery if have replacement

• Reduced knee osteoarthritis if consistently supplement with vitamin D for 2 years – April 2017

• Knee osteoarthritis treated with vitamin D, weekly 50,000 IU – May 2015

• Knee osteoarthritis pain reduced by 60,000 IU monthly vitamin D following loading dose – RCT Nov 2013

• I needed more than Vitamin D to treat my knee osteoarthritis Founder of VitaminDWiki needed to also use Magnesium

• 4 fewer days in hospital after hip or knee replacement if good level of vitamin D – June 2016

• Fewer Complications Following Revision Hip and Knee Arthroplasty in Patients with Normal Vitamin D Levels – March 2017

Hip fracture - prevention, replacement, recovery

• Hip fracture 58 percent more likely if low vitamin D – meta-analysis March 2017

• Vitamin D and fractures – 24 meta-analyses and counting – Dec 2014

• Fractures reduced with any amount of vitamin D and some Calcium - Cochraine April 2014

• Hip fractures reduced 30 percent with 800 IU of vitamin D – meta-analysis July 2012

• Vitamin D and exercise after hip fracture surgery – far fewer deaths – July 2016

• UK would save as least 636 million dollars annually by giving 800 IU vitamin D free to all seniors – June 2014

• Guideline following hip fracture – 50000 IU vitamin D daily for 7 days – Jan 2013

• 1 in 3 died after hip fracture but only 1 in 14 if add Vitamin D and exercise – RCT April 2017

• Few Fractures if high Magnesium intake – 2X fewer for men, 2.6X for women – June 2017

• Many fractures in France could be avoided with Vitamin D – Oct 2016

Back Pain 17 studies as of Aug 2017

• Chronic Back Pain relieved by weekly 60,000 IU of vitamin D – Jan 2017

• Back pain extremely associated with low level of vitamin D – May 2014

• Back pain cured with vitamin D – Book May 2014

• Back pain reduced for 95 percent of those who took vitamin D - 2003 file, not web page

  • This single study resulted in the creation of VitaminDWiki
• Long-term lower back pain greatly reduced by Magnesium - RCT 2013

Diabetes - a few studies

• Diabetes treated if given enough vitamin D (example: 50,000 IU weekly) – review of RCT - Jan 2017

• Vitamin D injection is far better than oral for diabetics (poor gut) – RCT March 2017

• Diabetes treated by vitamin D when levels exceeded 61 ng – Sept 2015

• Diabetes (Type II) reduced by single injection of 300,000 IU of vitamin D3 – RCT March 2014

• Prediabetics 60 percent less likely to become diabetic if given some vitamin D – Jan 2014

• Magnesium is associated with prevention and treatment of Diabetes – Meta-analysis Aug 2016

• Prediabetes reduced in half by those getting Magnesium Chloride – RCT April 2015

• Type II Diabetes might be prevented and treated with Magnesium – Review Feb 2015

  Overview Diabetes and vitamin D contains the following summary

{include}

Vitamin D and Magnesium separately prevent & treat these health problems, using BOTH should be even better

The TOP articles in Cost Savings and Vitamin D are listed here:

{category}

---

Employers could easily give Vitamin D to employee families via Amazon delivery service

Amazon permits employees to buy specific products and charge them to their company

So, employees could have vitamin D for their families delivered by Amazon to their homes

This totally eliminates the distribution cost and problems with delivery via employers or doctors/hospitals

---

Comcast is reducing Healthcare Cost of their 225,000 employees and families - Aug 2018

• You’ll Never Guess Which Company Is Reinventing Health Benefits
  • While deductables are typcially $1500 in other companies, Comcast lowered its deductible to $250 for most of its workers

• " . . . roughly a fifth of big companies continue to see annual cost increases of more than 10 percent"

  • Comcast increases only ~1% average is 3% annual increase

• Comcast is using such companies as (https://www.accolade.com/|Accolade]to help their employees understand options