Introduction
The relationship between trade and health is a complex one. Reflecting on these issues leads to questions on the nature of health itself, and its governance. Ultimately it is an inquiry into whether this relationship is one-sided or reciprocal. The primary investigation is into how trade affects health, the seemingly one-sided relationship. Cornia (2001) provides a search into how globalisation or the liberalisation of international trade can affect public health. He claims that, if well managed, trade liberalisation policies can have positive outcomes on the health situation of many countries. The initial conditions of each country and the way liberal economic policies are implemented matter for the nature of the outcomes.
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Baris and McLeod provide a useful framing of health as a particular type of commodity. This is mirrored in Thomas’ article (2002), although taken further. Indeed, Thomas introduces the problems related to the trade of health as moral issues, and as political issues. The main negative outcome is that of access to health. Through the example of ARV drugs, Thomas shows how these matters reveal the power structures in the global economy and the treatment of health as a commodity, subordinate to the imperatives of profit making.
These different approaches relate to three areas of analysis. First, the specificity of health and health care as tradable goods is that health is an exceptional object of trade. Second, these three articles effectively express how the liberalisation of trade in health can have positive effects as well as negative outcomes. However, the question appears of whether health should be an object of trade at all. Finally, Thomas (2002) as well as Baris and McLeod (2000) take the analysis to a higher level by demonstrating that the relationship between trade and health can in fact be a reciprocal one.
Health as an exceptional object of trade
The first point, and that which is essential to the analysis, is how health is an exceptional object of trade because it is linked to certain moral imperatives. According
A Health care system of any country is an important consideration for the purposes of the overall development. One of the most important and essential feature of the human body is the health and the systems. In the same manner, proper management is also necessary. Furthermore, all the countries of the world have few targets and achievements to be made. On the other hand, it should also be noted down that, economic development and social welfare the two most are the two important factors. Economic welfare is connected with the increase in the wealth of the people at large (Niles, 2011).
In Sridhar Venkatapuram’s (2010) article Global Justice and the Social Determinants of Health, the main argument presented is of the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health (CSDH) 2008 final report and examines the lack of general support the findings have received. The main concept of this analysis appears to mirror that of the CSDH’s report on “whether science, linked with ethics, can motivate global action, and whether the public scrutiny and deliberation…can meaningfully be brought together in global health policy” (Venkatapuram, 2010, p. 120). The premise behind this concept is that by bringing professionals together to address the strengths and weakness of the model, the theory behind social determinants of health will gain momentum.
In The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care (2009), the author of the book, T.R. Reid travels to industrialized democracies to discuss the different methods of health care delivery system used in these developed countries and compare them to the health care system of the United States. According to T.R. Reid (2009), “the thesis of this book is that we can find cost-effective ways to cover every American by borrowing ideas from foreign models of health care” (Reid, 2009, p. 11). This thesis illustrates that the American health care system can manage health care costs effectively and provide care to all by using some of the successful health care delivery models of foreign nations. The purpose of this book analysis is to discuss the four different health care models presented in this book and provide my prioritization or ranking of these models. This analysis also aims to investigate a case known as the Nikki White case described in this book and discuss the lessons learned from it. Furthermore, this analysis is going to provide my remarks on the, “An Apple a Day” comment relative to the Public Health Model. Lastly, in this book analysis, I will share my conclusion on the basic premise of the book along with my take away messages that I will remember into my future as a Public Health professional.
In conclusion, the topic of free trade is difficult to debate and often controversial as it has advantages but also disadvantages. Nonetheless, the drawbacks outweigh the benefits as it one, contravenes basic moral ideologies, two, makes the rich, richer, and the poor, poorer, and three, jeopardizes our declining environment. All in all, free trade will neither support nor sustain our country to be ethical, prosperous or
Article 1 claims that the establishment of a universal healthcare system would benefit the United states.This article supports its claim by providing Logos, Ethos, and Pathos in its argument. Examples of logos found in the text include, a statistic that states that in 2005 about 45 million Americans did not have health insurance. By including this statement, the editorial makes it it clear that many people in the US will benefit from a universal system of healthcare and makes the reader wonder how these people pay for doctor visits. In addition, the editorial states that the World Health Organization ranked the US at number 37th in terms of quality of care and adult morality rate. This gives the editorial a backbone so to speak since it
Australia is widely regarded as having a world-class national pharmaceutical reimbursement scheme that plays an important role in ensuring access to medicines. However over recent decades with new drugs emerging, the costs of these drugs are considerably expensive, especially if they are not on the Pharmaceutical Benefit Scheme (PBS). Today in modern society with the advances in technology and medicine, many people expect miracle cures of illnesses and diseases, but are unaware of the cost. As detailed in the ABC’s Four Corners program, the cost of cures is not available of the public health care system and for some; large amounts of money for treatments will only buy them time. About 100 cancer drugs are now subsidised under the PBS, at a cost of almost $1.2 billion to taxpayers in 2012-13, and those costs are rising (ABC TV, 2013: 1m 55s). Expenditure on cancer drugs has risen 44 per cent in the past five years, up from $830 million in 2008-09. The cost pressures are set to increase with drug companies saying they have about 100 new cancer medicines in late-stage development. The excessive costs of cancer treatments emphasises the division of class and power in society, with those with more money only able to afford these treatments. Along with this, medical dominance is highlighted, with people becoming reliant on cancer treatments and new cancer treating drugs. Amongst these issues, ethics is being affected by these costly treatments and many people are refusing to
Some health care costs may be paid by the patient and some health care costs may be covered by the universal health insurance program. There is perhaps no domain of economic activity that has generated more controversy in the United States than health care. In the advanced capitalist world, the United States is the only country within which the market plays a substantial role in the delivery of health care services; all other countries have one form or another of universal, publicly supported health care policies. In other intance if we differ from what is universal health from socialized heatlh. Some people refer to universal health care as socialized medicine. The term “socialized medicine” is primarily used for only in the United States by those who do not support the idea of universal health care(cite). Given the understanding that outside the US, is a different situation saying that the terms most used are universal health care or public health
Though it is common knowledge that pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies and biomedicine are all interconnected, Ordinary Medicine gives insight to the degree of power
The philosophy relayed by the book’s author consistently leads back to the moral question that must be asked in the initial design of the healthcare system. That determination has to do as to whether the government has a duty to act when there are those within their own country do not have equitable access to hospitals and doctors for the treatment of their conditions.14
In examining the United States economic health, it is important to consider the current account deficits. The question as to whether or not the United States can run the current deficit accounts indefinitely. Looking at the EU and its balance of payments, the question arises again as to whether or not they can maintain the deficits they are experiencing, indefinitely. Globally speaking, the United States does hold a unique position, but does that position allow the country the ability to consistently run the deficits it currently maintains.
From an economic perspective, there is an increased recognition of the benefits of society from the promotion of health and the prevention of disease, disability, and premature death. In addition, financing health care has been focused on medicine and some progress has been made towards health promotion and disease prevention; however, the progress in this direction is very slow due to social and institutional beliefs and values.
Good health for all people has turned out to be an acknowledged global objective and the records reveal that there have been extensive achievements in life expectancy over the past century. However, there has been persistence in health disproportions between affluent and deprived despite the fact that the prospects for upcoming health trends depend more and more on the latest processes of globalization. In the previous times, globalization has frequently been observed as an economic process comparatively. At the present times, however, it is progressively perceived as a wide-ranging trend fashioned by a multitude of aspects and incidents that are restructuring and changing the format of our society swiftly (Huynen, Martens & Hilderink, 2005).
Since the beginning of human civilization, our health and well-being has sustained a high level of importance, because one’s physical and mental condition are things that are necessary to care for. The issue however remains in how our governments should assist in this care and how involved they should be in the world of doctors, drugs and healthcare companies. Many have strong opinions on this complex issue, and governments have attempted many different strategies which have been met with a sweeping range of results, from the corrupt health care companies which can be seen in the US to systems which have been denounced as communism to everything in between. Personally, I believe that completely universal healthcare is the best for society as a healthy population increases economic productivity, the system allows you to contribute incrementally over time and your wealth should not influence your access to care.
The treatment of physical and mental problems has undergone a rapid change in the past few decades. An increasing number of bodily and behavioural symptoms now have a recognised medical diagnosis and corresponding treatment. Sociologists have attributed these changes to the process of medicalization, wherein “non-medical problems come to be defined and treated as if they were medical issues” (McLennan, McManus & Spoonley 2009: 271). Medicalization is an ongoing, gradual process which occurs through the social construction of new diseases by groups such as health professionals (Conrad 2007: 4). It can be argued that medicalization is an active and passive process by which diseases are constructed in an attempt to find treatments for patients; and that diseases can be ‘socially’ constructed as well as ‘corporately’ constructed by companies to create a profitable market of consumers. At the micro level of society, medicalization in the Western world has been influenced by liberal notions of individualization which has extended to some parts of the health sector. At the macro level, medicalization has been buoyed by the process of the professionalization, expansion of state monopoly over the health profession and religious and political social movements. Although some academics argue that the medicalization of society is less significant than the process of “de-medicalization”, there is clear evidence that the process of medicalization is intensifying and outstripping the rate
When analyzing the global health care crisis, one should pay particular attention of the problem from both the macro and micro scale. Overlooking either side of the issue wastes both valuable time and resources during an era that cannot afford such loss. Some argue that health care is a fight that politicians must win to enact change. Others say the crisis is simply another economic matter that will eventually resolve itself under the theories of supply and demand. When we look at these explanations without seriously considering the issues that arise in the microcosm, we expose ourselves to moral hazard. In Banker to the Poor (1), Nobelaureate Muhammad Yunus describes how a great deal of change can result from looking at the problem from a