OKLAHOMA CITY — Preventive care must be at the forefront of health care reform if the U.S. wants a sustainable new health care system, Tulsa County Health Director Gary Cox told an audience of students and citizens Tuesday during a lecture at the OU College of Public Health.
Cox, who will become the director of the Oklahoma City-County Health Department on Oct. 1, according to the Oklahoma City-County Health Department Web site, said citizens should contact local congressmen to support the health care bills currently going through the U.S. Congress.
“It’s time to put wellness back into health care reform,” Cox said. “If you’re really going to save money for the health care system here in the United States, you’re going to have to focus on wellness and prevention and keeping people from getting sick in the first place.”
He said the bill going through the House of Representatives includes a funding mechanism similar to the bill going through the Senate, but within the fund is a distinct prevention and wellness trust fund, which would benefit local health departments.
“Local health departments are the backbone of public health,” Cox said. “Local health departments are critical because they have partnerships in place and they know the community, they know the data, they have elected representatives on their boards of health and they have a wide variety of expertise.”
Cox said the bills would also create jobs. Using the example of the millions of dollars the federal government is putting into Oklahoma to combat the possibility of an H1N1 outbreak, he said local health departments would need to provide jobs for epidemiologists, nurses, vaccinators, IT people and specialists.
Cox said he thinks Congress will approve some form of health care because of American interest in preventive health care.
He cited a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation poll released in June that showed 76 percent of Americans ranked prevention as the most important aspect of health care reform and that the level of funding for prevention should be increased.
“Americans from coast to coast believe in prevention and they want prevention in health care reform,” Cox said.
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