Poverty and Medicine- Part 2
| Last month we looked at what the individual and the government can do in the face of world poverty, malnutrition and disease. In particular we examined the illness called Noma which in Africa is a direct result of malnutrition. Here we explore the role of corporations in this battle and also how we deal with poverty and health insurance issues in this country. Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and his wife have given huge sums of money, through his foundation, to deal with third world diseases and associated poverty. This kind of leadership will hopefully be picked up by other CEO's of major corporations. On the other hand, some corporations obtain cheap goods at the expense of exploitation of workers in third world countries. These sweatshops need to be stopped. Drug companies need to deal with lowering the cost of AIDS and other drugs in these countries. Poverty in this country still exists and the Katrina disaster showed us how poverty is often hidden from the media glare until disaster strikes. We need to lower the poverty rate and raise the threshold of what poverty is, by government definition. We need a poverty czar who regularly reports to both the Congress and the President. We need a media which recovers its moral compass. Poverty in health care in the USA is usually associated with Medicaid. This program needs to be disbanded and these people should be added to the Medicare system. The other related issue is who controls the health insurance of the people. The number of uninsured continue to increase and as a result we all pay for their care when they come to the ER and default on the payment. One state is forcing residents to have some minimal insurance, supported by the state, so as to avoid this problem. Another problem is that corporations want to decrease and eventually stop paying for health insurance of their workers. One state is trying to force WalMart to carry insurance for their workers since many of them are poor and on Medicaid which saps the state funds. Eventually the goverments, state and federal, will have to decide these issues as to who is to pay. In summary, individuals, corporations, government and the media must face the reality of severe poverty in the world and at home.They must work to change this landscape significantly. The payback of such an effort to all of us in the long run will be significant and it will be so for many generations to come. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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