Data connects lower health care costs to completing high school

In a recent brief titled “Healthier and Wealthier: Decreasing Health Care Costs by Increasing Educational Attainment,” the alliance worked on the basis that health care costs are highest for the least educated, and calculated state savings by combining the lifetime costs of Medicaid and expenditures for uninsured care, and multiplied the total by the number of students who drop out of Missouri high schools.

Costs for Medicaid and for uninsured care based on education levels were calculated for the brief by Peter Muennig, assistant professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, using data from 2003, 2004 or 2005 from several sources, including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, according to an alliance news release.

The alliance argues that if students graduate from high school, the state will see significant savings, because higher educational attainment improves a student’s future income, occupational status and social prestige, all of which can result in improved individual health.

Also according to the alliance’s findings:

• Americans with higher educational attainment have more insurance coverage;

• Individuals who lack health insurance receive less medical care and have poorer health outcomes; and,

• Lower education levels generally lead to occupations with greater health hazards.

“This study shows clearly that providing quality education not only improves students’ lives, but also saves taxpayers’ dollars,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, in the release. “A high school diploma opens the door to physical health as well as financial health.”

“Healthier and Wealthier: Decreasing Health Care Costs by Increasing Educational Attainment” was funded by Metlife Foundation and is available at www.all4ed.org.