I have to admit, the first thing that came to mind when I started this week’s reading in Stuckler and Basu’s The Body Economic about flawed healthcare systems was the TV show “Breaking Bad”. And I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Daily Beast journalist Tricia Romano discusses how the entire plot of the show is only effective and plausible because it is based in the realities of modern American health care systems, as is also discussed in Chapter 6 of our reading. The authors cite the “approximately 35,000 avoidable deaths due to the lack of healthcare insurance” from a 2009 study (99) and the “cost of a private healthcare insurance plan, which could be up to $ 25,000 per year for a two-person family” (100). Romano points to the similar situation of the fact that the main character of the show, Walter White, begins illegally cooking and dealing methamphetamine in order to pay for the $90,000 cost of his cancer treatments not covered by his insurance, and adds that he was lucky to not be one of the real “55 million Americans” without any health insurance at all (Romano). On such a large scale, the health care system in America is dealing with huge amounts of money (98), manipulative insurance companies (100), public and political pushback (99), and a lot of unnecessary deaths, which begins to make the difference between navigating a scary and difficult drug underworld and trying to get insurance coverage for serious health issues look a lot smaller.
While last week’s reading juxtaposed the economic policies of Greece and Iceland, this week showed the use of similar policies of austerity in health care systems having the same effects in both the United States and the United Kingdom, suggesting that healthcare systems that operate under the rules and polices of austerity are inherently, structurally flawed and have repeatedly led to poor health even when existing in different environments. Although Stuckler and Basu tend to present facts with elements of political bias (such as their presentation and commentary on the story of “Diane” on pages 97-99) they come up with a convincing argument supported by solid data that austerity is a policy that tends to have negative and pressurizing effects on economies and health care systems.
