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

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.

Once again, Stuckler and Basu provide us with three new examples of how providing government funds is best for the country and its citizens while cutting funds may cause and increase in death rates. The NHS in the UK is losing popularity for reasons that are unexplainable since the country did well with the NHS. An effort made by the Swedish government to prevent suicide drastically paid off. The graphs given simply depict how while unemployment rates led to higher suicide rates in Italy and the US, Sweden saw a decrease in suicide rates despite higher rates of unemployment. The reason for it was the Sweden provided the ALMP which attempted to help people that were unemployed find jobs once again instead of simply handing them money. It seems then that motivating people to be productive counteracts the unemployed men wanting to commit suicide. 

It is quite random that house foreclosures resulted in leaving pools as breeding grounds for mosquitoes in California. However, the rest of the statistics that resulted from homelessness  occurred consistently.

The question I find most intriguing- and most practical- is what, exactly, is America thinking? James suggested that conservatives egos are too big to allow them to be impartial- maybe. However, I think there really gotta be more to elected officials making choices that harm their country.

The body economic was an intriguing book that makes its point well; however, we all know that realistically, one book doesn’t change much. What we can get from the book- and I think many of us did- is an appreciation of the subject, a new way of thinking about health and public policy, and ideas on what we should do moving forward. I know that I’m interested in hearing more of the debate on these issues and seeing how things develop- hopefully for the better.