Ask:
The Cost of Healthy Living
Good health should certainly not be a luxury of the wealthy, but it seems to me that the steps one needs to take to maintain a healthy lifestyle can be rather expensive at times. For instance, eating healthily is common advice for healthy living, yet healthier foods such as fresh fruits and vegatable are undeniably more expensive than other foods. I think obesity has become such a problem because not only is there unhealthy food available, but one can buy copious amounts of it for little money. Getting a lot of food for cheap is an important drawing point, especially if one is just trying to cover the basic necessities. I think this unacceptably divides up health on a socio-economic level between those who can afford good health and those who cannot. Meanwhile, we advocate regular screenings and preventitive care as the best medicine, but at the same time emergency rooms are increasingly being used as primary care facilities. Is it possible to maintain a healthy lifestyle on a severely limited budget? I don't know how to rationalize or justify healthcare as a consumer commidity, and if current trends prevail the problem is only going to worsen. Surely solid, universal healthcare falls under the Lockean/Jeffersonian belief of the inalienable of life. While we are wedded to the ideals of capitilism, offering medical care as a relatively inelastic consumer commodity sets the consumer to be taken advantage of by either forcing him to make huge sacrifices by paying inexorbitant fees or by asking him to jeopardize his health when the finacial strain becomes an impossible burden to bear. And this is in a system in which the wealthier are more able to afford medical care, while those with less money are forced to pay more because of their lack of health insurance. I don't understand the national governmental policy in which public education is free and compulsury, but the inalienable right to life is not being fulfilled when healthcare decisions are being made by a cost/benefit analysis. Are we so wedded to the idea of the American Dream and the ideal of social mobility that free education is granted so that the grand illusions of America as the land of opportunity can be maintained? Why must our parents be the sacrifical lambs, dying of treatable, preventable diseases while we go to school so we can hopefully afford a healthly life for our children? Why can't we have both? It just seems to be an awfully backwards way of doing things.
Answer:
The Cost of Healthy Living
Interesting thoughts, YankeeBeckham, and surely many important questions that we don't seem to be able to answer satisfactorily. Good health is indeed not available for all; even in socialized healthcare systems such as those in Scandinavia, where healthcare is equally available for all, health seems not to be; socioeconomic factors still divide people to the haves and have-nots in this respect. The reasons are complex; but the lesson learned is that even public education will not have a marked effect, and equal distribution of healthcare, while it helps, is not a package solution to the problems you mentioned. The foundations of health lay deep within the network of genetic, social, economic, and cultural influences. For instance; exercise costs nothing - yet it is known that those with a higher household income are more likely to exercise regularly, and we know that regular exercise is one of the key elements of good health. On the other hand, alienation due to such reasons as unemployment, and also disillusionment due to poor job satisfaction, low salary, and the lack of social safety net are some of those factors that predispose to poor health.