from spiritof1848

     Feb 28, 2008: launch of RWJ Commission to Build a Healthier 
America
     Posted by: "Nancy Krieger" [log in to unmask] 
krieger_nancy
     Wed Jan 30, 2008 2:10 pm (PST)
     fyi ... will address health disparities ...

     SAVE-THE-DATE: FEBRUARY 28, 2008

     Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to Launch National 
Commission to Address Why So Many Americans are Sicker and Die 
Younger than Others

     Mark McClellan, Alice Rivlin to Lead the National Effort

     Washington, D.C. event will feature new data on health 
disparities and new national survey results regarding Americans' 
views on what affects health.

     On Thursday, February 28, 2008, the Robert Wood Johnson 
Foundation will launch a non-partisan Commission to identify and 
recommend practical solutions to eliminate health disparities 
and improve health for all Americans. The Foundation will detail 
the stark differences in health among Americans and how social 
factors such as education, income, race and ethnicity, and 
environment affect how long and how well people live.

     Mark McClellan, former director of the Centers for Medicare 
and Medicaid Services and current director of the Engelberg 
Center for Healthcare Reform at the Brookings Institution, and 
Alice Rivlin, current senior fellow and director of the 
Brookings Greater Washington Research Program, and director of 
the Office of Management and Budget during the first Clinton 
administration, will lead the Commission effort.

     The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a 
Healthier America is the first national, consensus-seeking group 
to consider solutions outside the medical care system for 
improving Americans' health. On February 28, the Commission will 
consider these questions:

     Why do poor and middle class Americans experience poorer 
health compared to those above them on the economic ladder?
     Why can some people in America expect to die 20 years 
younger than others dependent upon where they live?
     How do health disparities affect the country's productivity 
and global competitiveness?
     Why is it that Americans have worse health outcomes than 
patients in other industrialized nations given how much we spend 
in health care?
     The Foundation will release a comprehensive report 
detailing differences in health, how social factors contribute 
to these differences, and how they impact America's economic 
strength. Leading pollsters Bill McInturff and Anna Greenberg 
will release a public opinion survey highlighting Americans' 
views regarding health disparities and what factors they think 
most affect their health. The Foundation will also announce the 
full slate of commissioners.

     WHEN: February 28, 2008, 9:30 to 11:30 a.m.

     WHERE: The Columbus Club, Union Station, Washington, D.C.

     WHO:
     Risa Lavizzo-Mourey, President and CEO, Robert Wood Johnson 
Foundation
     Mark McClellan, Commission Co-Chair, Senior Fellow, 
Brookings Institution; Director, Engelberg Center for Health 
Care Reform
     Alice M. Rivlin, Commission Co-Chair, Senior Fellow, 
Brookings Institution
     David R. Williams, Executive Director of the Commission, 
Florence and Laura Norman Professor of Public Health, Professor 
of African and African American Studies and Sociology, Harvard 
University
     Anna Greenberg, Senior Vice President, Greenberg Quinlan 
Rosner Research
     Bill McInturff, Partner and Co-Founder, Public Opinion 
Strategies

     To RSVP or for more information, contact Alex Field at 
(301) 652-1558 or Nick Seaver.

     ***************************************************************
     Nancy Krieger, PhD
     Professor, Dept of Society, Human Development, and Health
     Harvard School of Public Health
     677 Huntington Avenue, Kresge 717
     Boston, MA 02115 (USA)

     phone: 617-432-1571
     fax: 617-432-3123
     email: [log in to unmask]
     webhttp://www.hsph.harvard.edu/faculty/NancyKrieger.html


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     Messages in this topic (4)
2b.
     Re: Feb 28, 2008: launch of RWJ Commission to Build a 
Healthier      Amer
     Posted by: "David R. Gibson" [log in to unmask]
     Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:48 pm (PST)
     A most distinguished panel! Someone who might also be 
considered for the
     commission is Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist 
and Princeton
     economist whose penetrating 2007 book Conscience of a 
Liberal identifies
     income inequality as the source of much if not most of the 
social ills
     afflicting contemporary American society. The book traces 
American
     history from the first (1865-1929) through the second 
(post-1980) Gilded
     Ages and makes a convincing case that the reason the U.S. 
is the only
     advanced industrialized society without universal health 
care is that
     plutocrats and their minions have successfully exploited 
racial and
     other cultural divisions to prevent it and many other 
needed reforms
     from being enacted. Although he notes that the U.S. is 37th 
in life
     expectancy he appears not to understand that we're so far 
down on the
     list not because of poor health care so much as because 
inequality kills
     and the U.S. is the most unequal of advanced societies. 
Krugman is a
     fine economist and historian who unfortunately doesn't 
travel in the
     same circles as the Spirit of 1848 Caucus. It is very 
likely, however,
     that he would be sympathetic to the goals of the commission 
and could
     contribute in an important way to its deliberations. In 
addition to
     income inequality, health care reform is one of his special 
interests
     and the nexus between inequality and health would be a 
natural extension
     of those interests.
     Ross Gibson