ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that income equality helps create social capital, a clear correlate of longevity, and that social capital, or social cohesion, is a measure of trust, and is associated with improvements in self-reported health. It also argues that a just healthcare system is one that enables the equal and full participation of individuals as participants in society – and, in addition, that health depends on free society as the guarantor of relationships, the structure that makes relationships possible. In the current medical-services supply system, the availability of specialized services is a market-driven phenomenon. Two additional roles for the US Health Authority would be to measure and eliminate disparities in longevity and function due to race, class, culture, language, low social capital, and geography. Measurement of disparities could be, and should be, done state by state, encouraged with matching federal dollars, with the federal government responsible for supervising the methodology, to allow state-by-state and locality-by-locality comparisons.
