Robert Fruend, Louise Probst & Richard Patton

The staff of the editorial page met this morning with its community advisory board and other distinguished guests for a conversation organized by Editorial Writer John Carlton, the member of the editorial board who has written so brilliantly and doggedly on matters of health care.

The program was called “Uninsured Children: Implications for the Future,” and began with presentations by Robert Fruend, Jr., who is CEO of the St. Louis Regional Health Commission, Richard Patton, who leads the Vision for Children at Risk program, and Louise Probst, RN, who is executive director of the St. Louis Area Business Health Coalition.

We will be rolling out more details from the presentations and discussions that followed (in which the participants broke into three groups and agreed on three policy priorities that must be pursued to reverse restrictions in access to healthcare that are severe and growing).

For the time being, here are Mr. Fruend’s and Ms. Probst’s slideshow presentations (although Mr. Fruend caution’s that his presentation contains some preliminary data, subject to revision, before his organization issues a report due out soon).

Robert Fruend

Here’s an item that moved me. It came during Mr. Fruend’s presentation, as he addressed what he considers to be a popular misconception about the availability of healthcare — namely, that, in the end, even the uninsured receive healthcare, albeit through hospital emergency rooms.

Simply is not true, Mr. Fruend, explained — describing huge disparities in prenatal care and basic medical screenings depending on whether people are insured and where they live (specifically comparing Clayton, Normandy and the Ville neighborhood in St. Louis).

Listen to him (by clicking on the audio MP3 below) address disparities in life expectancy depending on the privileges connected to where one lives:

heathcare