In an era with huge forces that require the strength of a nation or perhaps a civilization, our focus on problems sometimes just convolute our solutions. Most problems discussed in the media can become fallacies when explored further. Global warming and the plight of the uninsured are often brought up as the cause of so many of the current problems in the world. Preliminary parlor discussions about them often lead to the fundamental questions that really no one cares about. The debate about these issues lack depth and understanding and, too often, become generalized and media-friendly.
Global Warming. Does it exist? Most scientists would say yes; many skeptics would say no. But who cares? Too many people just look at the implications of weather patterns and debate that. Rarely does the discussion turn to the political implications of humanitarian emergencies when global warming is talked about.
Katrina destroyed New Orleans. This is not the first time something like this has happened in the world: Cyclones destroyed southern Bangladesh and fires have devastated California. Rather than discuss the mismanaged water and the depletion of the aquifers on the West Coast, the media focuses on this amorphous and controversial idea of global warming. Who cares that the Bush administration has a terrible and unadvised policy on forest management? It's global warming. Who cares that we let people live in New Orleans below sea level because the land is cheaper? We have global warming to deal with!
We are building houses deep in forests where they shouldn't be. We are forgetting about poor people in Bangladesh who have no where else to live but places where cyclones kill every year. No. The focus is always global warming. I believe the world is getting warmer, sure. But no one really knows what that means. So stop pretending.
The Uninsured. There are plenty of uninsured Americans in the United States and that number is getting larger? Why? America isn't what she used to be. Insurance coverage lost its foothold. OK. But in America, who cares? We are a country like any other with cultural values that can be compared and are often compared to those of Europe with "free health care." But, as my dad let me know well in advance of college, nothing is free. The problem with the comparison is that our values and expectations do differ.
Amartya Sen, the 1999 winner of Nobel Prize in Economics, explained that in the United States we have unemployment rates of less than 10 percent and that's how we like it. We also have double-digit poverty levels, one of only two developed nations in the world to have that much (the other is Turkey). But in America, that doesn't bother us. Elections are based on employment, not poverty.
In France, unemployment is nearly 25 percent, but poverty is below 10 percent. How does that focus on insurance? Who knows. There are more MRI machines in Philadelphia than in all of Canada. That's what Americans love, and that is what we have. Equity, up until now, is not in the equation.
People are uninsured for many reasons, and the question always arises, "Should we have a universal health insurance like in Europe?" No two countries' systems are similar, and they all have their own problems. Many are moving more toward privatized care and cannot afford the rising costs on their global budgets, etc. A universal health care insurance system doesn't exist: If it does, please tell someone about it.
As we consider equity let us not make it the focus as we also need to consider other problems with our medical system: rising costs, artificial demand and quality controls, to name a few.
Don't let the big issues confuse the little ones. The world is a complicated puzzle and nothing exists in a vacuum. I wish I could blame my bad grades and freshman 15 on global warming, the uninsured and I'll throw the president in there for good measure, but I can't. There are many other problems you can't as well.
