{"id":422362,"date":"2020-04-01T15:14:33","date_gmt":"2020-04-01T19:14:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=422362"},"modified":"2022-05-02T11:43:13","modified_gmt":"2022-05-02T15:43:13","slug":"will-covid-19-finally-spur-a-revamp-of-us-health-care-422362","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/will-covid-19-finally-spur-a-revamp-of-us-health-care-422362\/","title":{"rendered":"Will COVID-19 finally spur a revamp of US health care?"},"content":{"rendered":"

America\u2019s individualistic outlook toward health care has shaped the country\u2019s health care policy and system\u2014and not for the better, according to physician and historian<\/a>\u00a0Mical Raz<\/a>, the Charles E. and Dale L. Phelps Professor in Public Policy and Health at the Ä¢¹½´«Ã½<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, the coronavirus pandemic \u201chas exposed the limits of such an individualistic approach,\u201d one in which we prize our own health while blaming other people\u2019s poor choices and lifestyles when they fall ill, writes Raz in a\u00a0Washington Post<\/em>\u00a0\u201cMade by History\u201d op-ed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She outlines how the United States has historically responded to health policy crises\u2014such as the shortage of dialysis machines in the 1960s\u2014by carving out exemptions for treating specific illnesses rather than rethinking the health care system as a whole. \u201cAnd, over decades, we\u2019ve done this sort of thing hundreds of times, producing an incoherent, inefficient system in every aspect of health care,\u201d Raz writes.<\/p>\n

She calls on policymakers not to repeat these past mistakes. Instead, they must respond \u201cby rethinking this individualistic mind-set, in recognition that healthy individuals make healthy communities, which produce a healthy nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raz, an expert in public policy and health, is the author of\u00a0What\u2019s Wrong with the Poor? Psychiatry, Race and the War on Poverty<\/em>\u00a0(University of North Caroline Press, 2013) and\u00a0The Lobotomy Letters: The Making of American Psychosurgery<\/em>\u00a0(URochester, 2013). She\u2019s currently working on her third book\u2014a history of child abuse policy in the United States from the 1970s to today.<\/p>\n