Putting an insurance card in every American’s pocket won’t solve our health care crisis. It is clear, of course, that health insurance reform is an essential component of solving the crisis: nearly 50 million Americans lacking health insurance, and another 25 million underinsured (that is, with health insurance that doesn’t pay their medical bills). But fulfilling our human right to health care requires a larger vision, one that is focused not on cost-savings, but on improving everyone’s health.
So for those who want to see comprehensive health care reform, there has been some good new recently as both the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) and House versions of health care reform legislation include provisions that address the upstream social determinants of health. As the Boston Globe reported last Thursday, the House version includes $1.6 billion toward creating healthier communities and addressing preventable diseases such as obesity through construction of jungle gyms, streetlights, farmers markets, and bike paths:
[A]dvocates, including Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, defend the proposed spending as a necessary way to promote healthier lives and, in the long run, cut medical costs. “These are not public works grants; they are community transformation grants,’’ said Anthony Coley, a spokesman for Kennedy, chairman of the Senate health committee whose healthcare bill includes the projects.
“If improving the lighting in a playground or clearing a walking path or a bike path or restoring a park are determined as needed by a community to create more opportunities for physical activity, we should not prohibit this from happening,’’ Coley said in a statement.
Ignoring for a moment the concerning framing implying that somehow "public works grants" are something we should be avoiding, this is a highly promising sign that Members of Congress are thinking big and beyond just expanding insurance coverage. Fulfilling Americans’ right to the highest attainable standard of health will require more than just access to medical providers when illness or misfortune occur; it will require rethinking the way we build our neighborhoods and cities and supporting policies that are transformative in the way we eat, travel, play, and live.
Read more at The Opportunity Agenda website.
