The Environmental Impact of Poor Health Care
Posted on | July 20, 2009 | No Comments
There’s been a lot of talk recently about the health care situation in this country as the Obama administration tries to find a solution for the 50 million or so Americans who don’t have health insurance (watch Kathleen Sebelius on The Daily Show here to hear more about it). As I am unemployed and will be without health insurance come August 16, I have a vested interest in this debate and would like to see them make some progress by then. Let’s just review a couple of the facts about the health care situation in this country:
- Many employers provide health insurance options to their employees. Great, but what about the millions of us who are unemployed or whose workplaces do not offer this option? Nobody is required to provide health insurance to those of us who have been laid off or who can’t find post-graduation jobs in this ridiculous recession. And sure, if we are independently wealthy we can buy Cobra or some other type of interim health insurance… for what, $600 a month? Just “in case” we need to see a doctor? This is more than one month’s rent in many places. And it’s completely mental.
- Most other developed countries, including all of Europe and our friends to the north in Canada, have what is called a “single payer” health care system. Which is to say the government runs it, doctors are government employees, it’s free to every citizen of that country, and it’s paid for with their tax dollars. So, if they have a health situation, they go to the doctor, they are treated, and they don’t have to pay a dime. And yes, in some countries this means that for non-life threatening surgeries, there is a long waiting period. But it still doesn’t cost them anything!
- More is spent on health care in the United States on a per capita basis than in any other nation in the world. The prices paid for health care services are much higher in the U.S. but it is the leader in medical innovation, with three times higher per-capita spending than Europe and producing more new pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and affiliated biotechnology than any other country. The U.S. also has higher survival rates than most other countries for certain conditions, such as some less common cancers, but has a higher infant mortality rate than all other developed countries. The U.S. is also 46th for highest total life expectancy (courtesy of Wikipedia) and has the highest obesity rate in the world, with 64% of adults being overweight or obese.
Needless to say there are a lot of things to consider when trying to figure out a better health care system! But, since we always like to think about “green things” here, what is the environmental impact of having poor health care? Or maybe a better question is, how do we improve our situation by having a better health care system? Remarkably there doesn’t seem to be a lot written about this in the public sphere but I did find an article entitled Green Medicine: Environmental Impact of Health Care in a Canadian medical journal by a Kathy S. Worton, MD, and the article is not so scary with medical jargon that it can’t be read by normal people. Incidentally, one of the biggest impacts that I think a preventative health care system based on wellness could have on our country, as opposed to a reactionary system based on sickness (which is what we currently have), is a reduced overall obesity rates. Which, theoretically, would cause less strain on farming and food production. But, as I have not done a full-scale study on this, I can only speculate!
Whatever your opinion on the health care debate, I think there is no doubt that the system we have here in the U.S. needs to be fixed. Exactly HOW we fix it remains to be seen but here at the GDC we can only hope that it means less environmental impact in the long term!
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