Affordable Health Care for All Americans: A Matter of Literacy?

On Friday, a new report released by the University of Connecticut stated that the cost of low health literacy -- or the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information -- to the United States economy totals anywhere from $106 billion to $236 billion annually. The report has experts discussing if improving health literacy is the real solution to providing affordable health care coverage for the nation's 47 million uninsured people.

According to the U.S. Department of Education's 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL), which contained a health literacy component for the first time, 36 percent of the adult U.S. population , or approximately 87 million people, has just either a Basic or Below Basic health literacy level.

The new health literacy report was supported by a research grant from Pfizer.

Some medical experts are now asserting that the failure to provide or support a public policy educating Americans into a more than Basic health literacy level is bringing about needlessly high costs in terms of individual health, healthcare spending, and the economic well-being of the nation as a whole.

"Our findings suggest that low health literacy exacts enormous costs on both the health system and society, and that current expenditures could be far better directed through a commitment to improving health literacy," said John A. Vernon, PhD, Department of Finance, University of Connecticut, and lead author of the new report.

"Providing the U.S. population with access to affordable coverage creates a more level playing field among those who are and are not health literate. It is particularly challenging to improve literacy among populations who lack affordable access to timely and appropriate health care," says Sara Rosenbaum, JD, The Harold and Jane Hirsh Professor of Health Law and Policy and Chair of the Department of Health Policy at the
George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.