Letter to the Editor, The American Prospect

Ezra Klein’s article “Wealth-Care Reform” (June 09) puts forward some positions that need to be questioned. Citing Michael McGinnis’s article in Health Affairs, Klein concludes that genetic predisposition accounts for 30% of a person’s health; social circumstances, 15%; environmental exposures, 5%; behavioral patterns, 40%; and shortfalls in medical care, 10%. In summary, if the genes you inherit from your parents are good, and if you eat properly, drink in moderation, do physical exercise, and do all the other things that health behavorists tell you to do, you are already in control of 70% of your health and longevity. The type of work you do, the type of place where you live, and the income you earn – among other economic and social circumstances – and the medical care you receive (or don’t receive) account for the remaining 30%. Continueu llegint »

Published by Global Health Promotion, March 2009

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Original article by Antonio Daponte Codina, Julia Bolívar Muñoz, Silvia Toro Cárdena, Ricardo Ocaña Riola, Joan Benach Rovira and Vicente Navarro López

Published in the Scandinavian Journal of Public Health, 2008

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Published in Global Social Policy

The work of international agencies such as WHO (as well as other U.N. agencies) is very much determined by the distribution of power in the world. It is well-known that the governments of some countries have more power in today’s world than others. Continueu llegint »

Published in Harvard Health Policy Review. July 2008

The U.S. and European political cultures are very different

I appreciate the invitation from the Harvard Health Policy Review to discuss the relationship between national health care systems and the policy process. Continueu llegint »

A Counterpunch Special Report

Yes, We Can! Can We?

The Next Failure of Health Care Reform

By VINCENT NAVARRO

A major problem–if not the major problem–for many people living in the U.S. is the difficulty of accessing and paying for medical care when they are sick. For this reason, candidates in the presidential primaries of 2008–the Democrats more often than the Republicans–have been recounting stories about the health-related tragedies they have encountered in meetings with ordinary people around the country (an exercise conducted in the U.S. every four years, at presidential election time). Continueu llegint »