We have an excellent partnership between our School of Public Health at the University at Albany (SUNY) and the University of Costa Rica's School of Public Health. For the past two years I have taken groups of our students (and alums and faculty members) to Costa Rica for short study abroad and service learning experiences and a couple of times each year they send a small delegation of students to our School. In a couple of days four MPH students accompanied by the director of that program will arrive from Costa Rica for a two week visit.
When we go there we learn about their model universal health care program which provides access to everyone at a reasonable cost (half of what we in the U.S. pay for our health care) and provides excellent results (their longevity is greater than ours!). No wonder they are the happiest people on earth as measured by so many recent surveys and polls. In the late 1940's they decided not to have a military and to spend instead on social programs and the environment--in addition to an excellent education, health care, and pension program, they have set aside a large percentage of their country in protected national parks and reserves. They have beaches on three coasts, mountains that rival any in the world for beauty and recreational opportunities, and even some wonderful active volcanoes that are fun to visit.
But you can imagine how difficult it is for us to describe to them how our health care delivery system works with all of the players, fragmented services and programs, and high costs for poor results. Why, they wonder, do we do it this way when there are so many ways to provide better access to all at lower costs and with better outcomes? Our value systems are so different from theirs. Our profit-driven system of health care and inequalities leave them shaking their heads and we shake ours along with them as it is not a system that we as health policy professionals can in any way justify.
But we will show them some of the best we do have to offer: they will visit the Albany County Health Department; the Hudson Headwaters Health Network that serves a very rural population in the Adirondacks; the Albany Free Clinic; and they will undertake mini-preceptorships through the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Program at Albany Medical Center and visit the Pediatric Ambulatory Practice Program there as well as make visits to Centro Civico in Amsterdam and Equinox, a program serving at risk young people in Albany. They will spend a weekend in Lake Placid and take a tour of the NYS Capitol led by Assemblyperson Jack McEneny, our local representative. They will go salsa dancing and spend two nights at festive galas, one as guests of Equinox and one to help us celebrate our School's 25th anniversary. They will be here during Albany's Tulip Festival so they will tiptoe through the tulips in Washington Park, dance the light fantastic on a number of evenings, and even do some hiking in an Olympic setting. So what if our health care system hasn't yet been reformed sufficiently to match theirs--we can still show them a good time! Sounds like fun to me--I can't wait!
