Consciousness-Based Education - Maharishi University of ...

Health Care Cost Crisis and transcendental Meditation programAnalysis 2: Reduction of Health Care UtilizationApproximately 100,000 people are currently enrolled in the District’sMedicaid system, and last year’s Medicaid budget was $206 million. Asmentioned above, 75% of all health care dollars are consumed by 10%of the population—the high utilizers of health care. For the District’sMedicaid program, this means that 10,000 of the 100,000 participantsuse approximately $154.5 million of the total Medicaid budget. Theupper line in Figure 4 projects the current $154.5 million of Medicaidexpenditures attributable to high utilizers through the next five years,Figure 4. Projected Medicaid Expenditures for the District of Columbiaassuming a yearly increase of 11.6%, which is the published nationalnorm for health care inflation (Jencks & Schieber, 1991).Herron (1993) has demonstrated that, on average, the health carecosts of high utilizers decrease at least 19% per year for five years followinginstruction in the Transcendental Meditation technique. Thelower line in Figure 4 projects Medicaid expenses over five years if allhigh utilizers were to begin the Transcendental Meditation program.The savings in the first year would be $29.4 million. The savings for377