Is Our Health Care Debate Just a Sideshow?

By Sam Pizzigati
Created 03/25/2012 - 4:41pm

We obsess over health care in the United States, because we all want to be healthy. In the process, new evidence suggests, we're ignoring the social dynamics that actually determine our health.

The U.S. Supreme Court this week begins the process of deciding the fate of the Obama health care reform, and much, as the pundits like to say, will be at stake in the high court’s decision. The extent of federal authority. The political momentum into November. Access to health care for millions of Americans.
What won’t be at stake in the Supreme Court’s health care reform decision: the ultimate health of the American people.

Most Americans, of course, assume otherwise. We’ve become totally accustomed to equating “health care” with “health.” If you have health care, our conventional wisdom goes, you’re going to have health.