Ex-surgeon general: Attitude change needed for health care

• By TED GRIGGS
• Advocate business writer
• Published: Sep 25, 2008 - Page: 1D - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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The United States has the best doctors, the best nurses, the best hospitals, cutting edge technology and medical research, but the country must undergo an “attitudinal change” if it wants to deliver quality, preventive health care to its residents, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Joycelyn Elders said Wednesday.

“I think we just have to have the will to do it,” Elders said, “because we can always think of reasons we can’t do it. We can’t do it because of this. We can’t do it because of that.”

The money’s not available. The time is not right, or the political climate isn’t, she said.

Elders was the keynote speaker at the Justice Revius O. Ortique Jr. Symposium on Law, Politics, Civil Rights and Justice.
Sponsored by the Southern University Law Center and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana, the symposium’s topic was “Health of a Nation: Is Health Insurance a Right or a Privilege?”

“What we’re just going to have to do is just do it,” Elders said before her speech. “If every other (industrialized) country in the world can do it, why can’t we?”

The United States spends $2.2 trillion a year, around 16 percent of the gross domestic product, on health care, Elders said. That’s more than any other country, and the fact is that the United States does not have better results than other nations that spend far less.

The United States ranks around the middle of the pack when it comes to delivering quality care to its citizens, Elders said. In almost every measure of health, from infant mortality and teen pregnancy to preventable diseases and life expectancy, the United States trails other industrialized nations.

The U.S. spends $100 billion to care for the uninsured, and it would cost an additional $123 billion to provide health coverage for the 45 million uninsured Americans, Elders said. But she quickly added that providing insurance does not guarantee quality care.

Other countries that provide excellent care do a better job of educating their citizens than the United States does, she said.

“You can’t keep ignorant people healthy,” she said. “We’ve got to educate our populace.”

The nation needs to teach its citizens about taking care of themselves, preventive care steps and healthier lifestyles, Elders said. Another problem is that most health insurance does not pay for preventive care.

“Preventive health care does not necessarily save money, but it increases the productivity and the outlook and the morale of the workers,” she said.

Elders brushed aside the question of the added cost to provide that coverage.