The ability of the right diet to prevent illness has prompted some health insurers to pay for “food … [+]
During the holiday season, Americans’ charitable impulses are repeatedly highlighted in stories about donating food or feeding meals to the less fortunate. Not discussed are the many poor and/or elderly Americans who are being fed by their health insurance plan based on the cold-eyed calculation that doing so will reduce their future medical costs.
Although the prophet Isaiah promised that if “you offer your compassion to the hungry,” then “the Lord will guide you always,” the “Food is Medicine” movement (also known as “Food as Medicine”) focuses on a more tangible reward. Tufts University researchers found that providing medically tailored meals to the 6.3 million Americans with diet-sensitive conditions could net $13.6 billion in savings annually from averted hospitalizations and other medical issues.
A separate Food is Medicine Landscape Survey, examining how poor diet is linked to heart disease, stroke, breast and colorectal cancer and other illnesses, concluded, “The current trend of poor health conditions associated with one’s dietary intake, combined with an aging U.S. population, increases the financial burden on Medicare, Medicaid and other federal programs…Improving the nation’s dietary intake has significant health benefits and, therefore, cost implications.”
Since 2020 Medicare Advantage plans have been allowed by the government to offer extra benefits such as food. According to KFF (previously the Kaiser Family Foundation), 72 percent of MA plans offered meal benefits such as meal delivery in 2024. Interestingly, among those who qualify for what’s called Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill, just 13.9 percent of individual plans offered food and produce, but 60 percent of “special needs plans” did.
If, on the other hand, an elderly individual needing food or nutritional assistance chooses traditional Medicare, he or she is on their own to find help.
In 2023 the federal government began approving requests by states that wanted to use Medicaid funds on food-related programs including vouchers for groceries, stocking pantries with healthy food for children and pregnant women and nutritional counseling. A Wall Street Journal article noted widespread bipartisan support for the effort and sketched out initial food efforts in states as diverse as Massachusetts and Arkansas.
Unsurprisingly, however, when good intentions involve ungodly amounts of money, both abuses and opportunities arise. For instance, an investigation by STAT News found that one food company that was paid millions of dollars annually by state Medicaid programs to deliver “medically tailored” meals to those suffering from illnesses such as cancer or diabetes is delivering salty, fad-laden fare such as cheeseburgers. Another company sold a version of biscuits and gravy loaded with sodium and saturated fat.
On the other end of the scale (as it were), a company called Foodsmart has raised investment capital for a telenutrition platform which, according to a Forbes.com post, enables primary care providers to refer Medicaid patients to a network of “virtual dieticians” who provide “personalized, condition-specific nutritional guidance.”
More in the holiday spirit, perhaps, is a New York-based organization active in the “food as medicine” movement that embodies both ethics and economics. The organization, which provides medically-tailored meals, Is called “God’s Love We Deliver.”
