A Time Of Trial On The Home Front, Too

Senate majority leader Bill Frist (R-TN), who trained as a transplantsurgeon and now aspires to be president, has been a strong voicefor eliminating the disparities that characterize the U.S. healthcare system, and he speaks out again in this thematic issueon that subject. Similarly, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), theDemocratic champion of most health care initiatives during hislong tenure in Congress, adds his voice to the outcry over disparities.These are important voices that may persuade Congress to addthis item to its already crowded agenda, but the jury is clearlyout. We believe that this is a critical set of issues and thusare devoting this volume to papers that document disparities,many of which could be eliminated if the Bush administration,Congress, and the electorate demonstrate the collective willto do so.

We acknowledge the support provided by four organizations thatthrough their own works have already demonstrated their commitmentto eliminate disparities (see the Foreword that immediatelyfollows): Aetna, the California Endowment, the Robert Wood JohnsonFoundation, and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. We also express ourappreciation to Nicole Lurie of RAND, who served as an editorialadviser.

We wish to call a few items to readers’ attention. First,in 2005 we began to number all of our pages consecutively fromvolume to volume each year. This brings documenting Health Affairspapers more in line with other journals’ practices and,we hope, increases ease of use for our readers. Finally, wewant to alert Health Affairs readers that we have moved partsof GrantWatch to the Web to take advantage of that medium’stimeliness. New reports on grant outcomes, publications resultingfrom grants, announcements of funding changes, and more willbe posted at www.healthaffairs.org twice monthly, on average.

John K. Iglehart, Founding Editor

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A Time Of Trial On The Home Front, Too