The Body Economic closes with a challenge. “To achieve a real, lasting human recovery,” the authors emphasize, “we must fundamentally change the way we think about what’s important.” The challenge posed is, at its essence, a deeply moral one. It begs those in charge of our policies to transcend the political biases that are so embedded in every decision they make. It implores the men and women who ultimately determine our quality of life to rise above the doctrine of their respective political parties and to respond to difficulty with an increased sense of accountability. It asks them to put the people first. When a government invests in the health and future of its people, both benefit. In biological terms, it would be considered a mutualistic relationship. Many political pundits, however, would have you believe that it more closely resembles a parasitic one. While the people revel in their free healthcare, the poor, old government digs itself deeper and deeper into a bottomless pit of despair (and debt). Yet, the two doctors, Stuckler and Basu, procure enough evidence to conclusively show that the highest economic return is received from investments in health, education and social protection programs. At a time when the public opinion of governments around the globe has never been worse it has become the responsibility of the citizens to hold their governments accountable to growth strategies that do not detract from their health, wealth and dignity.
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Apr 14
Body Economic Part II
There is a sense of happiness and comfort while reading about countries with massive public spending on their citizens. It is great to see healthcare for all and social safety nets. What is not great is the IMF constantly making wrong decisions for entire countries. You would think that they would learn from their previous experiences that austerity is not the proper choice for every country and in this part of the book they mention the same concept. The IMF does not even use hard data to calculate things for each individual country and instead standardizes and oversimplifies policy to get to austerity. One of the Icelandic officials was complaining that the people having a right to choose what happens with their economy was wrong and the results should be left to either a computer or a few elite intellectual few. I am sorry, but is that supposed to be the IMF? Are they the “elite” and “intellectual” because their track record indicates otherwise. To see Iceland reject the IMF policy and continue to fund public healthcare except on even grander scales was amazing! The recession even managed to allow leisure time for their citizens, allowed for more sleep, and brought back an entire economy of fishing. Greece directly contrasted Iceland with their policies of austerity. The tumor story was startling to read and I had never even heard of an underground Robin Hood network of doctors. A 40% unemployment rate in youth was to me unheard of. The way they continued to lie about their citizen’s healthcare and lack a choice with democracy, the more upsetting it was to read about Greece.
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Apr 14
The Body Economic Part II
It’s interesting to read about the situations in Iceland and Greece, side by side in part II of The Body Economic, because of the significant differences between them. Basically, Iceland recovered nicely from an economic crisis by listening to the people and continuing to provide them with help, while Greece’s economy continued to suffer as they listened to the IMF, and cut budgets and healthcare. After reading about both countries, the importance of both listening to the citizens and helping them during hard times becomes obvious. However, can it really be that simple? Just continue to help your people, give them what they want, and this will help fix the economic situation? And even more so, it will help the overall health of the people too? The situation in Iceland almost sounds too good. Despite the fiscal crisis, surveys showed that people still showed positive moods, and that they actually began drinking and smoking less and eating healthier. Then again, Iceland was doing really well in terms of happiness to begin with. Social protection programs as well as a high level of social inclusion made Iceland the “happiest” country in the world since the late 1990s. There’s no doubt that this whole nature of the country helped enable it to survive the economic hardships. This is actually why, the authors say, “Iceland was a good place to test our hypothesis that the country’s strengths – notably its democratic participation, social support, and inclusive social protection system- could make it more resilient to an economic meltdown, preventing a public health disaster (59)”.
