Stephen Bezruchka, professor emeritus, has a message to share, and even at 82, he’s not slowing down.
Throughout his extensive career, Stephen Bezruchka, emeritus professor in the Department of Health Systems and Population, has taught and mentored thousands of students, published dozens of papers, chapters, and the book Inequality Kills Us All, launched a YouTube channel, and has even entered the world of social media. His newest book, Born Sick in the USA, is set to release in February of this year. Bezruchka’s message through it all: Americans are dead first, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Changing Minds
Bezruchka started as an emergency physician and eventually transitioned to public health going on to study at Johns Hopkins University. He subsequently learned a staggering statistic that changed his life: men in Japan smoked at several times the rate of men in the United States and yet they lived the longest. “I had originally believed that personal behaviors and medical care mattered more for producing health, but this statistic showed me how social and political factors matter most,” said Bezruchka. “You’ve got to ask yourself, ‘what do I think? Why do I think that?’ And then if you find evidence that is inconsistent or contradicts the way you think, you’ve got to explore new ideas.”
Americans Dead First
In 2024, total U.S. healthcare spending was at $5.3 Trillion, about 18% of the country’s GDP. Comparatively, America’s international peers (Australia, Canada, Switzerland, etc.) spend between 8%-12% of their GDPs. Though U.S. healthcare spending far exceeds that of its peers the US consistently has the lowest life expectancy, the highest number of hospitalizations from preventable causes, and the highest rate of avoidable deaths.
According to the United Nations, life expectancy for Americans is about 79 years, ranking them 42nd just below Turkey and China. “Americans should be concerned that they’re dead first, meaning that we push up daisies far sooner than people in other countries,” said Bezruchka.
“I’ve spent my career trying to understand why Americans think they’re the best at everything when the evidence is so totally contradictory.”
-Stephen Bezruchka, professor Emeritus
Bezruchka’s new book, Born Sick in the USA, explores how public policies, chronic stress and inequality are making Americans sicker even though they’re spending more on healthcare. “I wanted to conceptualize health as something that a country has that is different from personal health. If you make a country healthy then what you and I do as individuals doesn’t matter so much,” said Bezruchka. “I’m trying to present this information in a way that leads people to want to do something about it. That something has to be done collectively. We’ve got to organize or we’ll keep dying.”
Taxing the Rich
What’s Bezruchka’s solution to make America healthier as a nation? Decrease inequality by taxing the rich. “The richest 400 families pay the lowest rate of all: 23% on combined federal, state, and local taxes. That doesn’t seem fair to me,” said Bezruchka. “In the 1950’s when we were one of the healthiest countries in the world, they paid the highest rate of all, 70%. These data come from 2018, and it’s gotten even worse since then.”
To understand how taxing the rich fits into a broader public health strategy, Bezruchka points to the Swiss Cheese Model—a framework that illustrates how layered policies work together to reduce harm and improve population health. “We can use policies to create a society without a big gap between the rich and the poor, which has been proven to be better for health in other countries,” said Bezruchka. “We should be spending our healthcare money on more effective solutions like single payer healthcare, paid parental leave, reparations for those harmed by slavery and residential schools, and most importantly, taxes on wealthy billionaires.”
Healing America
Bezruchka plans to continue sharing this message in new forms to reach broader audiences. He’s currently filming and posting videos on his YouTube channel “Healing America” with new episodes dropping now. He’s also hoping to collaborate with a younger person to make videos for younger audiences on different social media platforms.
“We’ve got to ask ourselves, ‘Do we want healthcare or do we want health?’.”
-Stephen Bezruchka, professor Emeritus
“We’re in the worst crisis since we came out of the Civil War, but you have to be hopeful or I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing,” said Bezruchka. “We’ve got to ask ourselves, ‘Do we want healthcare or do we want health?’ If we want health, then we need to limit concentrations of power and corporate overreach, make the government responsible for the health of the people, and create opportunity for all.”
Bezruchka will join HSPOP professor and Department Chair, Megha Ramaswamy to discuss his new book, Born Sick in the USA, on March 17th, 2026, at 3 pm PT. Their conversation will cover the impact of public policies on American health and how economic inequality creates sickness stemming from a highly stressed society. The discussion will take place in person in HRC 101 and will be streamed on Teams. Register for Teams at https://bit.ly/BornSickInTheUSA