Health Reform: Time for a Paradigm Shift

There is no question that health reform is crucial. To attain true health reform, however, we need to focus on keeping Americans healthier in the first place and not just treating them after they become sick. If we want to improve the health of the communities we serve, of an entire state, or of the entire nation, we need to act upon the fact that our health is shaped far more by the places we live, learn, work, and play than by what happens in clinics and hospitals (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation 2008). And although a recent Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)/Trust for America’s Health survey showed that 71 percent of Americans favor increasing national investment in disease prevention and that influential policymakers are making the case for prevention in health reform, the fact remains that most of the public and many policymakers, grantmakers, and individuals working within health and health care still think only about health care coverage and quality when they think about health.