Healthcare financing and global health

Money makes the world go round, it has been said... Global health holds no exception. The amount of money circulating around the world is not endless and has to be maximized to yield the best results. It's been suggested many times that simply giving all the poor people of the world money will not solve the problem of poverty. In the same way, just by having a lot of money in a system doesn't mean that the citizen's will have the most optimal health. It's all about management. The U.S. has proved over the years this theory as it spends the most on healthcare, but does not have the healthiest people. Japan which has been ranked really high up (I think #1, but hmmm) does not invest as much money into their system but produces much more results. In her attempt to reform, the U.S. must figure out the distribution of money in the health care system to allow for everyone to have equal access to health care. The use of private v. public funds allows for a good collaboration, as the private industry is primarily for profit and the public is supposed to hold the interest of the citizens. Money does make the world go round, but until it is evenly distributed, the world will not look the same for everybody.

Triage, response systems and global health

Disaster have been made more noticable in the world, with the improved use of media. Natural and man-made disasters are all covered more frequently; people are interested in knowing what's going on. This can be attributed to technological advances that have made the transmission of news so easy and effective as well as globilization: many more people know someone that is in another part of the world. Human activity have also caused an increase in both natural and man-made disasters. Global warming can certainly be attributed the change in weather patterns. Man-made disasters can be attributed to greater tension between regions. Sometimes, man-made disasters like war, which can result in the wiping of agriculture, can aid in the occurrence of a natural disaster, like a drought. In all cases, it is imperative to save as many lives as possible. It is also important to rehabilitate after the disaster. In saving lives, the triage seems to hold such an important place. It allows for the most humanly possible way to play God; some can say that if a person is destined to die, nothing can save them. In the same way, if a person has been marked as deceased in a triage, but it's not their time to go, nothing will allow them to die. In any case, this system certainly has flaws, but is the best thus far that can be done.

These last few weeks have been so interesting to me because I have learned a lot more that I had no clue about; whereas the first few weeks provided me with more information. It's been really nice marinating all this information as I've read and heard. Hopefully the next time I hear some of this information, I would have enough knowledge about them to engage in intelligent discourse.