SAVE Commission's findings - La Follette School of Public Affairs ...

from common sense
when it comes to helping
individuals care for
themselves and others.
The challenge: to change
the government and social
culture to free those
who have greater capacity
to be self-reliant or
help others but still protect
and care for those who need it.
A SPECIFIC CHALLENGE: PUBLIC
HEALTH
Government has a responsibility to protect
public health from 21st Century threats and
give it a high priority on the state’s policy and
program agenda.
Local government and dozens of focused
and sometimes competing interests constitute
the core of Wisconsin’s diffused public health
system. The Division of Health attempts to facilitate
and coordinate activities, and laudable
outreach efforts exist in the University and elsewhere.
R E S U L T S
Taking responsibility will:
1 Reduce the negative view of
government as the creator of
dependency and reduce the
number of citizens dependent on
the state.
2 Reduce the tax burden of creating
new entitlements and programs of
subsidy rather than self-sufficiency.
“You must affect personal
behavior if you are going to
address the larger issue of
government and cost of
government.”
Ted Kolderie, consultant, Minneapolis
3 Move the debate about and
control over how to solve social
problems back from state
government to the local
community, voluntary organizations,
family and individuals.
4 Change the products of state
government from direct aid,
assistance and directions to
creating local and citizen level
preconditions for self-help.
However, Wisconsin
is behind other
states in developing a
coordinated healthcare
system focused on
prevention and using
cooperation among
government and nongovernment
interests.
Threats are posed by
local, state, national and international changes
in policies regarding communicable diseases,
reproductive health, child health and environmental
health. Moreover, changes in population
concentrations, mobility and mega systems—such
as public water supplies and depressed
immunological systems—compound
the challenge.
The state should place public health high
on its agenda but it should reach beyond simply
creating an organization. The issue is how
to create an effective society of organizations
and interests that have different but interrelated
roles and responsibilities—beginning with the
individual citizen.
5 Adopt a public health model of
government service: treat the whole
community instead of individuals
directly; focus on prevention, looking
to create preconditions of health, not
treatment of illness; and shift
responsibility to individual and family
for their own health.
Actions
4.1
Find new paths to the
self-reliant community.
4.2
See the entire
community as able to
serve.
4.3
Government programs
and employees become
helpers.
4.4
Return public health to
the public agenda.
Marlin Buehler,
Forestville
“Make the state of
Wisconsin a safer place
to live.”
David Prosser,
Legislator
“How can the state
unleash, promote and
reward the potential in
people, business and
not-for-profits?”
CITIZEN • COMMUNITY • GOVERNMENT — WISCONSIN: THE 21 ST CENTURY 19