What we have in the United States is not so much a health-care system as a disease-care system.
Interpretation
The quote criticizes the focus of the U.S. health care system on treating diseases rather than promoting overall health.
Edward Kennedy's quote suggests that the United States' approach to health care emphasizes responding to illnesses after they occur, rather than implementing preventative measures or promoting wellness. This perspective highlights a systemic issue where resources are allocated to treating diseases instead of fostering a health-centric culture that prioritizes prevention and holistic well-being.
In practice
In a discussion about health reform, this quote can highlight the need for a shift towards preventative care.
Immigrant families have integrated themselves into our communities, establishing deep roots. Whenever they have settled, they have made lasting contributions to the economic vitality and diversity of our communities and our nation. Our economy depends on these hard-working, taxpaying workers. They have assisted America in its economic boom.
We know the future will outlast all of us, but I believe that all of us will live on in the future we made.
With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion. With Barack Obama we will close the book on the old politics of race against race.
Regulation has gone astray. . . . Either because they have become captives of regulated industries or captains of outmoded administrative agencies, regulators all too often encourage or approve unreasonably high prices, inadequate service, and anticompetitive behavior. The cost of this regulation is always passed on to the consumer. And that cost is astronomical.
We want to support our troops because they didn't make the decision to go there... but I don't think it should be open-ended. We ought to have a benchmark where the administration has to come back and give us a report.
Individual faults and frailties are no excuse to give in - and no exemption from the common obligation to give of ourselves.
Simply put, when there is no home birth in a society, or when home birth is driven completely underground, essential knowledge of women’s capacities in birth is lost to the people of that society—to professional caregivers, as well as to the women of childbearing age themselves.
The problems of health care can be solved if we stop giving tax cuts to those who have the most, and start making health care affordable for those working harder and harder for too little.
What the American public thinks is very important to the future of global health. Many people are moved by the idea that there is unnecessary suffering in the world, and we could do a lot to stop it. We have the technologies necessary to stop most of the suffering.
The purpose of a doctor or any human in general should not be to simply delay the death of the patient, but to increase the person's quality of life.
We must never neglect the patient's own use of his symptoms.
The heart of the security agenda is protecting lives, and we now know that the number of people who will die of AIDS in the first decade of the 21st Century will rival the number that died in all the wars in all the decades of the 20th century.
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