From 1966 to 1980 – in the wake of the War on Poverty, the US Civil Rights Act, and the establishment of Medicare, Medicaid, community health centers, and the Environmental Protection Agency – US socioeconomic and racial/ethnic disparities in premature mortality and infant death shrank; after 1980, when Republican politics hollowed out the public sector, disparities widened.
Throwing government funds at science and medical research (among other things like war) has neglected serious and important social programs which have been essential to the public’s health.
While we try to clean up the health care industry why not look at our neglected social policies as well?
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