Public health is more important than health care.

PUBLIC health practitioners seem to be suffering an identity crisis. Perhaps they have felt ignored and under-funded for so long that they are eager to latch onto anything that includes the word "health." Or perhaps some public health practitioners understand that health care receives 94% of the health services dollars with only 3 % going to public health, so they mistakenly think they should be part of the 94%. Or perhaps the identity crisis is due to the fact that many public health personnel originally had their roots in health care, so they still have latent desires to practice health care rather than public health. Or perhaps the identity crisis is a manifestation of the fact that many public health practitioners do not understand the basic differences between public health and health care. Or perhaps the identity crisis is due to some public health practitioners not really believing in the primacy and cost-benefit desirability of disease prevention, health promotion and environmental health as differentiated from health care. Or perhaps some public health practitioners do not understand that public health is in eternal competition with health care for the budget dollar, just as certainly as public health is competitive with such other basic governmental functions as welfare, education and national defense.