Banks, insurance companies and home owners have already fallen victim to the US financial crisis. Now healthcare is under fire. Last week, the state of Hawaii announced that it was ending Keiki Care, the only universal health insurance program for children in the United States. In the face of a projected deficit of $900 million by 2011, Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle was forced to cut the program just seven months after she had signed it into being. On the national stage, the presidential candidates have refused to explicitly shelve any one of their proposals for office, including health reform. But Hawaii’s decision augurs badly. more…

Last week I found myself at a conference on multidisciplinary teamwork in the NHS, and one of the keynote speakers observed that the main benefit of the “credit crunch” is that bankers have overtaken healthcare professionals as the most hated profession in the country. The media is full of stories of doom, as the banking system lurches from one crisis to the next. However the comment got me thinking about the wider health impact of both the current financial situation, and the recession we seem to be entering.

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