WHEREAS, the ACPM has as a primary goal the promotion of prevention to improve the health status of all Americans, and

WHEREAS, almost one-sixth of the people in America are without health insurance, with likely a similar number of people who are underinsured or with inadequate insurance, and

WHEREAS, it has been clearly demonstrated by many studies that the uninsured have much higher mortality and morbidity rates, especially from chronic diseases, than the insured, and

WHEREAS, a major cause of this increased mortality and morbidity in the uninsured and underinsured is their delay in seeking timely care because of financial barriers, and

WHEREAS, a major preventive action to prevent this increased mortality and morbidity would be to minimize the current degree of delayed care, especially for the uninsured, and

WHEREAS, America's health care delivery and financing systems are fragmented and dysfunctional, leading to delayed care or total absence of care for many people, especially the uninsured, and

WHEREAS, our current financing system for health care in the U.S. discriminates against those people who have chronic illnesses, and

WHEREAS, there are great disparities in health status among different population groups in the U.S., especially compared to other countries which have universal coverage, and

WHEREAS, our current health care system wastes an excess of resources on administrative costs and duplicated and unnecessary services, resources that could be used instead for effective patient care and prevention, and

WHEREAS, the public interest and public health have not been well served by the current for-profit trend in health care delivery and financing, which has largely excluded those people most at risk for poor health outcomes, as well as made their access to care more difficult, and

WHEREAS, a publically administered financing system based on a single risk pool would allow a much more equitable and affordable health care system which would include every person in America, not discriminate against those with chronic diseases, allow for decreased administrative costs, and have as its highest priority the health of every American - as opposed to our current fragmented predominantly private system of financing which has come to place cutting costs as the highest priority and has excluded a growing number of Americans from health care coverage, and

WHEREAS, with our inefficient and wasteful system, the U.S. spends almost twice as much per capita on health care as the other industrialized countries, which all have universal coverage, and

WHEREAS, a more cohesive and unified system for financing and delivering health care - with a financing system that included every person in America - would help decrease health status disparities in the U.S. as well as make access to health care affordable for everyone, and

WHEREAS, one of the principal goals of "Healthy People 2010" in eliminating health status disparities in America is universal coverage by the target date of 2010,

BE IT RESOLVED,

THAT: The ACPM support universal coverage for every person in America under a financing system that has one or more (e.g., national or state-by-state) publically administered risk pools.

THAT: This system of universal coverage be accomplished and put in place by the end of the decade (2010).

THAT: Based on the potential that prevention has for improving overall health status and the affordability of health care in a global sense, the new system of financing include substantially increased resources devoted to prevention and public health.