Health in Society

Health in Society

There is no such thing as a perfect society. As much as we would like to think that the society we are living in today is near perfect, the truth is we are all victims of imperfection. Society is full of many problems such as crime, discrimination, class conflict, corrupt politics, and many others. Truth is, society today is lazy and lets the government run their lives for them. The United States today is more socialist than democratic, but tell that to the average person on the street, and they will surely say you’re wrong. The government controls everything, from what you watch on television, what you say on the phone, to what you eat. This brings me to my main point, health in society. The health of people in the United States and all over the world is questionable to say the least. The question remains, are the governments of countries throughout the world doing enough to sustain the all around health of its citizens?

This is a tough question to answer because of its broadness. We can approach this question in a few ways; let’s start out by looking at the least industrialized nations. Referring to a few Third World countries such as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and Zimbabwe, we can compare some key health statistics that show staggering differences these countries, and industrialized nations such as the United States and Great Britain. The average life expectancy in industrialized nations is around 75 years old. This number is sure to augment in the upcoming decades with the aging of the baby boomer generation. But as of right now, 75 years old is a long life by anyone’s standard. Now what if I were to say to you, the life expectancy in Third World countries is one third less than our own. Do the math and what does that mean? It means that people in Third World countries are living a minute life expectancy of 50 years. At the age of 50, we all can expect to be working hard at whatever career we chose in life. In Afghanistan, a person of 50 years can expect to make his or her funeral arrangements. How can this be possible with all of the medical innovations that science has given us? It’s quite simple; Third World countries are financially unable to supply their medical facilities with adequate equipment and supplies. Money is scarce in Third World countries, hospitals have small budgets and its patients have very little to offer in exchange for medical attention. Because of the lack of modern technology, many diseases that could be treatable in industrialized countries are death sentences to people in Third World countries.

Diseases are common in all societies, but there is one problem that separates the most and least industrialized nations, that is malnutrition. Chances are you don’t personally know anybody suffering from malnutrition, and if you do, it’s most likely because of an eating disorder which will be discussed later. Bioengineering and great agricultural advances in technology give us the ability to grow a plethora of different foods. There is so much food produced each year that nobody in the world should be unfed. Yet, somehow, around 500 million people are malnourished throughout the world. The realities linking these statements are a relatively insignificant part of our lives in the United States, but in Third World countries these realities are part of the lives of its citizens. Here in the United States, we are accustomed to having three meals daily with snacks throughout. Walking into a grocery store, we are reminded of just how spoiled we have become. Now lets go halfway around to the world to Ethiopia. There is a major food crisis in Ethiopia, and there is nothing that they can to end the food deficiency. The climate in Ethiopia plays a major role in the food crisis. Ethiopia has faced drought time after time, stagnating its agricultural production and leaving its citizens to starve to death. When drought is not a factor, “only 24 percent of Ethiopians have access to safe drinking water”. (UNDP, Human Development Indicators, 2002). (Ifpri) Malnutrition is the principle cause of disease and death in Third World countries. The four main problems of malnutrition are: “protein-energy malnutrition (PEM), with 500 million people affected and 10 million dying every year; vitamin A deficiency, causing xerophthalmia and blindness, which affect 6 million people a year and kill 750,000; endemic goiter, caused by iodine deficiency and affecting 150 million people a year; and nutritional anemia, affecting 350 million people a year”. (Urvina) Malnutrition is affecting millions of people world wide, yet there is no solution to stop it from occurring. The irony is, most industrialized nations are spending billions on boosting their military, something that just causes more death. If each industrialized nation offered one billion dollars in aid to malnourished countries such as Ethiopia, millions of lives would be saved.

Now that we’ve been introduced to some health problems of the least industrialized countries, let’s dig deeper into health problems in our own country and other industrialized countries. The United States is home to some of the best medical facilities in the world. We can cure diseases that kill millions in other undeveloped countries. Some forms of cancer can be cured. It is even possible to transplant a new heart to someone with a bad one. We live in a perfectly healthy society, don’t we? Think again. The United States has its health issues, but it is not disease or hunger issues that plague the society. It is more of a political issue that causes some citizens of this great country to die of very curable medical problems. This political issue that poses a problem to its citizens is health care. As of 2004, over 15% of Americans were without health insurance. The number of people without health insurance was 45.8 million in 2004, compared to 45.0 million in 2003 and 39.8 million in 2000. (Cbpp) In a country as wealthy as the United States, this is an unacceptable number of people uninsured. Is there a way to provide every citizen with health care? We only need to cross the Atlantic Ocean to our friends in Western Europe to find a plausible answer. Universal health care, is health care coverage which is extended to all citizens, and sometimes permanent residents, of a governmental region. Universal health care is provided in most developed countries and in many developing countries. The fact is, the United States is one of the only wealthy, industrialized nations that does not provide universal health care. Politicians can’t come to a consensus on the issue, and until they do, look for the rising cost of health care to continue to leave more and