This bit of good news points the way to saving money and lives…

The risk-adjusted rate of heart failure hospitalization fell from 2,845 to 2,007 per 100,000 person-years from 1998 to 2008 in a fee-for-service Medicare claims analysis by Dr. Jersey Chen of Yale University and colleagues.

That decline — the first ever documented in the U.S. — likely saved $4.1 billion in Medicare costs since 1998, they reported in the Oct. 19 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Saving money on health care is not done effectively by cutting benefits and shutting people out of access. The answer is to keep people healthier, by good preventive care and evidence-based practice. If you care about your future, you will support universal health care with strong government oversight and research into best practice. The life you save may be your own.