Note: The Center for Healthcare Reform closed September 14, 2009. For information on Public Conscience Work, please see Center founder Jack Glaser’s new Web site for the St. Joseph Health System Scholar in Residence.

What the Center is all about…

Imagine: You wake up tomorrow and the children important to you are heading off to work 10-hour shifts in coal mines, factories, and farm fields.

Today, most of us would react with disbelief. And yet, in the United States of the 1800s, most adults experienced this daily.

So, what does this have to with health care?

Most of us in the U.S. think the way health care works here is a given. We have a difficult time imagining our nation’s health system being much different, even better.

At the Center, we think big changes-like the ones that transformed childhood in the U.S. from a time of work to one of discovery-will happen. But it will take a group of dedicated, everyday people coming together to exercise their collective imagination and power.

Imagine: In the 1800s, a few individuals saw children going off to work and they made a leap: they imagined a different world for children.

Together, let’s take a similar leap: Join us in writing a new chapter for our nation’s health care!