Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 2, 1992 TAG: 9202030169
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
IN VIRGINIA, OUNCES OF PREVENTION
A STATE Board of Health proposal for improving primary and preventive health care in Virginia has not drawn much attention since it was offered in December. It deserves more attention - and support from the legislature.The reason is simple: It makes little sense to spend huge amounts on caring for sick people - as Virginia and other states are being forced to do - without trying harder to keep them healthy in the first place. Yet the state Department of Health has seen its general-fund resources actually shrink during the past decade.
The board says that $500 million more is needed per biennium, an amount it says can be raised from tobacco and alcohol tax increases. We do not believe excise taxes ought to be earmarked for health care, but we have said editorially that these levies should be raised substantially. And we recognize, as lawmakers should, the general wisdom and urgency of the health board's six-year action plan.
Among its top priorities: to "ensure that basic, primary health care is made available, accessible and affordable to every citizen in Virginia, especially mothers, children and the uninsured; support and encourage disease prevention and health promotion . . .; ensure that clean, safe drinking water is available and accessible . . . ."
The board also encourages family planning and seeks "a reasonable [state] health-care plan and health-care services."
The need for such services is evident. Cabell Brand of Salem, chairman of the Board of Health, notes that 900,000 Virginians lack basic health insurance. This means that one of every seven people in the commonwealth has no financial protection against the kind of serious or prolonged illness that can drive people into bankruptcy.
There's a vicious cycle: Such families also are more vulnerable to sickness because they do not have the means to obtain routine health care.
A third of the uninsured are children who lack basic preventive health and dental care; the state has a high infant-mortality rate. "Many communities, like those in Virginia's rural regions, [are] without enough doctors." Sixty-nine Virginia localities are said to be medically underserved.
And not all are rural. About 38,000 people in census tracts just north of the Roanoke River have no family doctor in their neighborhoods, this newspaper has noted. For health care, they must travel - sometimes with difficulty - to physicians outside their area, or during emergencies go to a hospital.
Helping people stay well and nip illness early may not be glamorous, but it is crucial. The nation has long been enraptured by developments in high-tech medicine; these, it happens, contribute mightily to the steep spiral in health-care costs.
But public-health measures - sanitation, vaccinations, prenatal and infant care, and other preventive programs - have done more in this century than wonder drugs or machines to make Americans hale and long-lived. They can do yet more to conserve money and assure that limited health-care resources are used where they can do the most good. These efforts deserve more time, attention and public funds in Virginia and elsewhere.