{"id":254553,"date":"2026-07-29T12:16:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T12:16:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/254553\/"},"modified":"2026-07-29T12:16:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T12:16:10","slug":"letter-local-health-department-wouldnt-solve-real-problem-reading-eagle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/254553\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter: Local health department wouldn\u2019t solve real problem \u2013 Reading Eagle"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve Henshaw\u2019s July 18 column asks, \u201cWho handles public health in Berks?\u201d<\/a> In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Berks County commissioners contracted a study to research this very question and appointed a review panel of five members of which I was one to evaluate the study conclusions.<\/p>\n

The majority of the panel members supported the recommendation that the county establish a public health department. I dissented. In my judgment the research did not support the recommendation. I argued that in five years we would be asking what difference had the health department made, likely none or very little, but realizing that once in place it would be virtually impossible to remove.<\/p>\n

Berks has a robust network of family care providers and specialists across the health care spectrum, anchored by Tower Health, Penn State Health St. Joseph and the innovative, Reading-based Berks Community Health Center.The issue is not health care coordination. That comes as the need arises if not already present. The issue is the flawed American system of financing health care.<\/p>\n

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that the U.S. spends the highest amount on health care as a percentage of gross domestic product of any member nation \u2014 18.1%. The average across the other 37 member countries is 9.3%. For every dollar these countries spend America spends two.<\/p>\n

In the United States we have universal health care only for those who have reached Social Security age. That\u2019s not fiscally responsible, and it\u2019s not fair.<\/p>\n

Solomon Lausch<\/p>\n

Bern Township<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Henshaw\u2019s July 18 column asks, \u201cWho handles public health in Berks?\u201d In the wake of the COVID-19…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,5037,1559,28,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-254553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-letters-to-the-editor","tag-opinion","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}