Koop Takes the Pulse of U.S. Health Care

Dr. C. Everett Koop earned a reputation for plain speaking as U.S. surgeon general during the Reagan Administration. Now, in “C. Everett Koop, M.D.,” five ambitious one-hour specials focusing on various health concerns, the maverick medico examines the sorry state of U.S. health care.

In the first hour, “Children at Risk,” airing tonight at 10 on NBC (channels 4, 36 and 39), the issue is the nation’s estimated 16 million children without health insurance or quality medical care.

A visit to “high-tech” patients, children sustained through advanced technology, raises questions of quality of life and cost effectiveness. The special indicates such care can bankrupt parents and has an overall annual price tag of $4 billion. But Koop feels that lives saved and knowledge gained are worth it; “barriers in the system” must be removed.

In rural areas, uninsured residents mean hospital closures and an exodus of doctors. In Harlem, 5% of newborns test positive for AIDS; one out of five has been exposed to drugs in the womb.

In the second segment, “Listening to Teen-agers,” airing Sunday on the same channels at 7 p.m., Koop looks at the stresses of adolescence--pregnancy, AIDS, depression, abuse, chemical dependencies. He highlights one school’s successful health-care programs and lets teens have their say. Upcoming shows on subsequent Sundays deal with preventative health care, the deterioration of the doctor/patient relationship and the future of medicine.

Koop isn’t subtle. His own emphatic presence is very much evident in the personal profiles of patients, parents and others. This can be awkward--his interaction with children is sometimes heavy-handed--at one point he asks a bewildered black preschooler to give him a “high five.”

But in making the point that poor health care is “economically and morally” everyone’s problem, Koop offers a strong voice for new priorities: medical reform and guaranteed access to care.