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“Health Care Reform:
A Cure That Leaves The Disease Untreated?”

Dr. Stephen Bezruchka

July 11, 2010 at 10 a.m.

The health of people in the US is less good than people in all the other rich nations and some poorer ones if we compare our rates of dying, either in childhood, in the prime of life, or in retirement. We suffer PDS, Premature Death Syndrome which can be treated by medical care, by changing our diet or exercise patterns or by stopping smoking.  The medicine we need are social justice policies that previous Presidents enacted or proposed back when we used to be one of the healthiest nations in the world.  Support for early life is where political policies need to act.

In the spring a report from the UW Department of Global Health published in the world's leading medical journal, Lancet, announced that for those aged 15 the chances of living to age 60 in the US are less than over 45 other nations. There was no news coverage of this in the U.S. but plenty about our wars, murders and health care reform.

Will the Patient Protection and Health Care Affordability legislation make us live longer? No expert thinks it will have much impact. What is needed is the simple medicine of economic justice. We gave it to Japan to enable it to become the world's healthiest nation.

Dr. Stephen Bezruchka is a Senior Lecturer in the Departments of Health Services and Global Health in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington. He has a medical degree from Stanford and a public health degree from Johns Hopkins Universities. He has practiced emergency medicine for 35 years. He teaches graduate courses in population health, and directs the Population Health Forum that tries to make better known America’s health status. He received the 2002 Outstanding Teacher Award in the School of Public Health as well as the 2008 Community Service Award.

 

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