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SATURDAY'S EDITORIAL

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Better health, better education go hand in hand

~ the issue ~Education and health care

~ Our opinion ~

Graduating more students in S.C. stands to improve health

The cost of insurance for health care is not good news for South Carolinians. We wrote this week of workers having the highest percentage increase in premiums of any state from 2000-2006 – a rise of more than 80 percent. With wage increases during the same period not even coming close to a match, the number of people joining the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured is growing.

Now comes even more evidence of why education matters as part of the solution for what by any definition is a crisis.

Aware that health care costs are highest for the least educated, the Alliance for Excellent Education calculated state savings by combining the lifetime costs of Medicaid and expenditures for uninsured care, then multiplying this total by the number of students who drop out of South Carolina’s high schools. If these students were to graduate instead, the state would realize a significant benefit.

The alliance states that if every South Carolina student in the class of 2005-2006 graduates from high school, the state could save $320 million in lifetime health costs. The numbers are based a study, “Healthier and Wealthier: Decreasing Health Care Costs by Increasing Educational Attainment,” funded by MetLife Foundation.

Healthier and Wealthier argues that higher educational attainment improves a student’s future income, occupational status and social prestige, all of which contributes to improved individual health. The brief cites several reasons why, including the fact that 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.

“High dropout rates and low educational attainment result in financial and social costs for state and federal budgets,” said Sibyl Jacobson, president of MetLife Foundation. “Education promotes economic freedom and inspires a lifetime of knowledge acquisition, and for those reasons, is pivotal to all of the initiatives the foundation supports.”

“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. Beyond that, “a high school diploma opens the door to physical health as well as financial health.”

Improving both in South Carolina is a goal of the highest order, and education remains a key to achieving it.

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