The Academic Journal could inject optimism into US health policies. This is a rare item among the Trump administration's massive layoffs, fundraising freezes and ideological research reviews.
A new issue of medical scholars argues that it can fundamentally change if you consider a conversation about healthcare to be “big bigger” and that policymakers invest in the community.
“We're a great opportunity to help you get started,” said Dr. Victor Roy, director and director of Health and Political Economic Projects for New York City's new schools.
“There's a feeling that people are getting sick, people are looking for bigger alternatives. People have really visceral feelings about these issues, and if they come up with an idea on the scale of the challenges they are experiencing, there's a way to tackle them.”
Health policy quickly became the Maga major touchstone (“Making America Great Again”) as the Trump administration undertakes a campaign of shock and adoration that dramatically changed public health agencies.
In just weeks of his inauguration, the administration scrubbed the government's health website for information on women and racial minorities, reviewed billions of scientific grant applications to adapt to the president's agenda, and confirmed the nation's frontline vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the national health leader in the Department of Health and Human Healthcare across the country. The administration also says it will separate the United States from the World Health Organization (WHO), which was discovered in 1948.
Additionally, Congressional Republicans have raised massive cuts on Medicaid, a low-income and disabled health insurance program that guarantees about 72 million Americans, extending tax cuts that primarily benefit the wealthy.
But even outside of recent rapid changes, the scale of the challenges to healthcare in America is remarkable. The US spends more on healthcare than most other countries as its share of gross domestic product, but has the worst outcomes among developed countries. This is a global outlier because it cannot provide universal healthcare and is one of the few countries that allows citizens to go bankrupt on medical debt.
How to fix it? Roy claims he will. Instead, look upstream for solutions to health problems. Abandoning the story about “fitness.” Find out what works in the city or state.
In an interview, Roy cited the example of Philadelphia Joy Bank. This is a small program that offers a $1,000 basic income for pregnant and postpartum women. There are no questions about this money. This is a world of differences from traditional “welfare” or a world of temporary support for poor families (TANFs).
Tanf once provided temporary cash assistance to the poor. Since the welfare reforms during the Clinton era, the program has exhausted resources. That small payment has led to the loss of venues due to inflation and work requirements, and many have added with insurmountable bureaucratic barriers.
In Connecticut, lawmakers have established Baby Bonds, a small investment account for each low-income child born in the state. The program offers $3,200 per child invested in the market and can be used to purchase a home, start a business, or pay for higher education or retirement benefits.
In Washington, D.C., reformers of the American Economic Freedom Project are using the lessons of recent antitrust victory to promote the proposed “glass-like for health care.” The initiative, called Break Up Big Medicine, refers to glass-like laws from the new contract era that separates investment banks from commercial banks.
Other articles in this issue propose a home care cooperative to provide better working conditions for care workers in their homeland. Public production of medicines, including reinvestment of public hospitals and $100 million investment in local public insulin production in California. Or to provide social insurance in an age where people are unable to work.
“The general approach to health policy leaves Americans behind, including rural and low-income residents and people from historically marginalized communities,” Kathryn A. Phillips, editor of health issues scholars, said in a statement on the issue.
“Policymakers need to know that there is another way: an approach that prioritizes investing in patients, communities, and healthcare clinicians and workers.”
