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More Proof Our Health Care System Needs A Major Overhaul
By Mark Schauss | March 5, 2008
The start of the Reagan Administration in 1981 was supposed to bring us something known as trickle down economics whereby giving large tax breaks to the wealthy and large corporations would trickle down to the rest of us and make our lives better. While I don’t want to get into a political debate here, what I do want to point out is that the exact opposite is happening based on a study in the recent PLoS Medicine.
Nancy Krieger of Harvard University found that the death rate in people under 65 in the poorest sections of society were 60% higher than among the rich. You might say that this may be caused by a higher murder rate, or other reasoning but the problem lies in the fact that this percentage is double what it was in 1980. Because of the high cost of medicine, failure to prevent disease, and this insatiable thirst by big pharma to excite Wall Street with a new blockbuster drug to treat a disease that they invented to increase profits makes taking care of those of with limited financial resources impossible.
I don’t espouse a welfare state but I do feel that we are leaving a significant part of our society behind and in turn creating anomosity between our citizens. The government should not be in the business of subsidizing people yet we subsidize the wealthy and large corporations such as the pharmaceutical industry on the shoulders of the middle class.
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