SUMMATION AND COMMENTARY
The background papers and presentations document causes for concern about the health of children in the United States. Discussions at the conference affirm a zeal to improve supports and services on behalf of children. The international comparisons stimulate thinking on the approaches that are best suited for this country. Voices will be raised that the US must work out its own solutions and that we cannot learn from what other countries are doing. Understandings are firm that every nation's health care systems grow out of unique political, social, and economic traditions, but those systems are not immutable. A limited number of strategies are available to help children and young families. Insofar as the policies that enable those strategies can be clarified, the likelihood of developing the best approaches for this country is improved. We are grateful for the analysis of policies that prevail in other Western democracies. One of the impressive aspects of health services for children in the five nations represented here is their differences. Health care financing and provider systems differ markedly; they are not cookie-cutter programs. Those differences present a responsibility to identify themes that are common to the nations with the best records of child health. Such themes deserve careful attention. The first of the themes is the need for government action. The US has been through a decade of trying market systems featuring deregulation, individual responsibility, and volunteerism. The impression of most analysts is that these approaches have not worked. Important indicators of child health have worsened or previous favorable trends have slowed.