A CALL TO ACTION

---Taking Back Healthcare for Future Generations---

“Is our healthcare system really in crisis?”

That's a question Hank McKinnell, one of the world's most influential corporate leaders, encounters every day. His answer may surprise you. While McKinnell agrees that there is a crisis, he doesn't think the problem is with “healthcare”—rather, he asserts the crisis is in “sick-care.”

Healthcare systems around the world, McKinnell argues, are focused on sickness and its management, rather than health. As a result, dialogue about how to sustain health now takes a back seat to arguments about cost—containing it, avoiding it, or shifting it to someone else. The result? A near-universal belief that healthcare is becoming unaffordable, fragmented, and impersonal. “Focusing only on the cost of care is looking at the healthcare problem though the wrong end of the telescope,” says McKinnell, the chairman and CEO of Pfizer. “The real focus should be on the horrific cost of disease.” In America, the “sick-care” system delivers the world's most sophisticated procedures, while skimping on vaccines, hampering the fight against AIDS, and intruding into one of life's most personal relationships—doctor and patient.

Henry A. McKinnell joined Pfizer, Tokyo, in 1971 and since then has assumed positions of increasing responsibility at Pfizer operations around the world.Chairman since May 2001, McKinnell has enjoyed an illustrious career at the firm spanning more than 32 years and has received accolades for both his leadership ability and business acumen. In 2003, McKinnell was honored with the United Nations Association of America's Global Leadership Award and in 2004 he was counted among America's most powerful business leaders by Fortune magazine.

John Kador has reported extensively on health care companies. He is the author of ten books.