2014 Shaping the Future of New York Fridays: 11:00-1:45 Boylan Hall, 2231

Throughout these past few semesters, I have developed, in my admitted ignorance, an idea of how a government should best assist and service the citizens that pay it tribute. Many of the people that ebb and flow through the periphery of our existences have had their lives and their paths significantly altered by “chance.” These alterations are not those of a tailor. They fail to make our lives more snug and comfortable. These alterations are most always detrimental to our standard and quality of life. And that is where the government should come in. It should be the place of the government to mitigate the negative effects of “chance” on the life of its citizen. The government should have the social services in place to care for a person when disease strikes or when a company is forced to downsize. It should be the aim of a government to guide the growth of a society to overall comfort, health and contentment, despite the wrenches that are constantly thrown recklessly into peoples’ lives.

There is one aspect of our current government policies that incessantly nags at me, and ceaselessly antagonizes and harasses the ideal above. Instead of helping those in need, those who are vulnerable and weak and whose lives have been “altered,” the government has a track record that is truly something to be ashamed of. Yet, if neglect were the only issue, I would not be as bothered as I am now. Our current policies seem to go out of their way to accentuate poverty and disability. The policies seem to undermine the entire purpose of government, not only impairing the ability of our nation to succeed, but crippling our growth. It is not realistic for us to aspire to Sweden’s active labor market policies. Our population is approximately 34 times that of Sweden’s and unless everyone wants to pay taxes that are astronomically higher, we have find another way. And that, I think, is the idea being espoused by The Body Economic. Our government leaders must investigate the paths that create healthy societies. They cannot let their egos and their prejudices get in the way of facts and data. They must set aside their party lines and do the deed they were elected to do—what’s best for the American people.

After finishing The Body Economic, I am rather convinced that the authors Stuckler and Basu are right. In each part- in each chapter even- we are given more and more examples of how austerity and budget cuts are harmful to societies while actually helping the people is not. In the third part of the book, we see Sweden’s social protection plan, the Active Labor Market Program, which actively helped the unemployed get back on track. It’s no wonder that programs like this would be beneficial. We have already seen how unemployment/ not making much money can negatively affect people mentally and emotionally, leading to depression and in some cases, suicide. And with people who are already feeling down in the dumps, having someone to hold their hand and help them up can sometimes be the only option. It’s amazing to see that social protection programs were the reason why “unemployment spikes had no correlation with increased suicides in Sweden, Finland, and Iceland, but unemployment was strongly correlated to suicide in Spain, the US, Greece, Italy and Russia”(118). It almost seems too perfect for the authors’ arguments that the economic situation in so many different countries prove their points, especially since for each one, the authors bring lots of statistics, as well as personal stories.

Prior the Great Recession, the US healthcare system covered only about two-thirds of Americans. That’s 103 million people uninsured or left to pay for private companies. Within a system that relies heavily on employer-distributed health insurance, it can be expected that both the unemployed, as well as the self-employed will not reap the benefits accept for the small percentage of those who can afford the privatized system. During the Great Recession the United Kingdom’s healthcare system, The National Health Service, moved to closer resembling the US system. This move towards free-market competition among insurance companies should have been known to be risky since the US took steps to reverse the effects of a privatized system during the Great Recession with the passaged of the PPACA or Obamacare.

What does this say about our healthcare system if the providers are the ones being provided for? The insurance companies, hospitals, and drug companies all get the benefit of our healthcare system. Since recessions are connected with increasing unemployment, and receiving health insurance is highly dependent on your employer, harsh austerity reforms during times of recession are detrimental to public health. Unemployment means more depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, and self-harm, which also means more spending on the medication to treat these conditions, as well as the higher government spending that is contributing to more unemployment checks. Reforms should focus on fixing the root of the problem, rather than treating the effects of austerity.