Health Costs of California Air Pollution

I found an interesting article in the NY Times that spoke about a recent study exposing the correlation of air pollution in California and rising hospital costs. The RAND Corporation study stated that filthy air in California cost federal, state, and private health insurers $193 million in hospital costs. More than 2/3 of the costs are paid for by Medicare and Medical (California's Medicaid program), while private insurers paid the rest. The study showed that Los Angeles County spent the most in the state on air pollution related ailments, which makes sense considering Los Angeles is known for high traffic content and air pollution. Air pollution led to almost 30,000 hospital admission and emergency room visits for asthma, pneumonia and other respiratory and cardiovascular ailments from 2005-2007. From these cases, 3/4 were directly related to fine particle pollution, or small pieces of soot trapped in the lungs, and the remaining cases were caused by ozone. This article was alarming to me because it showed how poor air quality is affecting the health of the residents of the area. More initiative must be taken to clean the air of Los Angeles County, perhaps by promoting car pooling or the use of public transportation. The rising health costs can be alleviated by going to the source and attempting to prevent excessive pollution in order to enhance the health of future generations.

Here is a link to the article:

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/health-costs-of-california-air-pollution/?scp=1&sq=health%20costs%20of%20california%20air%20pollution&st=cse