Medicine & Social Justice: Health is not a commodity. Let us get the language right

[patrice]

From: Dr. Josh Freeman, Chair of the Department of Family Medicine and Chief of Family Medicine at the University of Kansas Hospital

http://www.medicinesocialjustice.blogspot.com/

Sometimes the starkest realities are hidden by the language that we choose to speak about them. This week I attended two important conferences, the annual American Public Health Association (APHA) meeting of about 8000 or more public health workers from across the country, and, on the day preceding it, the annual Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) meeting, with about 400 doctors and medical students.

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When a hospital makes money on its profitable “product lines”, what is the mission? To help provide for the basic healthcare needs of the poor and uninsured? Or to invest in expanding those already-profitable product lines? If our national and international economies generate wealth, is the goal to provide the basic health needs of those whose labor created that wealth? It is clear what we have, de facto, chosen in the US: since 1992 the top 400 taxpayers have had a 500% increase in income, and the rest of the top 5% a 150% increase. 50% of the total increase in income over that period has gone to the top 400 people, and 93% to the top 5%!

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”Solidarity,” Dr. Benos adds, “means no one should be left alone in this crisis.”

His work and that of other Greek physicians is to be sure that this definition of solidarity is the one they live by. For us, in the US, a stronger sense of social solidarity would be important; indeed, any sense of social solidarity would be an improvement. The evil myth propagated by many in the US is that when we support the core needs of the most vulnerable, we weaken the economy; in fact, the reverse is true. Providing a core set of social service, including health care, education, housing, food, and opportunity, increases our ability to be a strong society. It is the opposite, the concentration of all wealth in a few, that jeopardizes our future. Trickle down, it should be clear now, doesn’t happen.

[OmahaBlueDog]

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