The health system in the U.S. is heading for catastrophe. The tens of millions of uninsured Americans are a major stress on the system, and our current system of employment-based insurance guarantees growing numbers of uninsured. Adding to the stress are the underinsured, who increasingly must turn to public sector institutions for their care. Insufficient access to health care is not exclusively a problem for poor people, but increasingly the experience of a broader sector of the public. Whether patient or provider, business or individual, insured or uninsured, across the community people are seeing the need for a reformed system—it is no longer a small group of us crying out for change.
The fault lines of our system put ever more distance between the haves and the have nots – and the latter are more likely to be women, minorities, the elderly, children, immigrants and other vulnerable groups. Although we have been able to see the crushing age wave heading our way for years, we have done little to create a sensible system of long-term care to ensure our citizens the independence they crave as they face old age and disability.
Health & Medicine believes that these health problems have become so intractable and complex that they will not be solved by market forces alone. We believe that as a society we must plan how we approach health problems. The challenge before us is to develop bold solutions to both the micro and the macro problems and facilitate the public policy dialogues necessary to effect real change.
Our organization’s investigations, education, and advocacy are driven by a deeply held belief – shared by board and staff alike – that health problems are social problems, and that the vast inequalities in health and in the availability of health services will only be reduced if we also address the larger social determinants at work.
It is this commitment to equality and freedom that has led Health & Medicine to champion such diverse issues as the reproductive rights of women, the humane treatment of prisoners, the need for a strong safety net to shore up the public health infrastructure, and the need to build a home- and community-based service sector in Illinois that will preserve the independence of the elderly and disabled.
