ividual ills. Social workers will labor with only marginal government support to support less fortunate members of society, while the health care industry continues to be America's number one big business.
Levine and Lerner (1994) advocate a new paradigm to supersede "the biological and psychological theories of causation that locate the origins of disease within individuals while overlooking its social roots" (p. 42). They note that American should not be satisfied with existing policies as long as we observe the marked relationship between social class or race or gender and health. Instead, they advocates that we "proceed to inquire how the influence of social class, race, or gender on health varies in different places and at different times . . . [to] look for the larger macro factors that affect the relationship between class and health" (p. 42).
Anything short of a universal access, single-payer system with national standards would constitute a set of patchwork adjustments that would not correct the problems that exist in U.S. health care. Of course, the existing problems with the c
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