Public Health and Health Insurance
Swine flu has swept onto the health care stage recently and the concern is how to protect Americans if we end up facing a pandemic. Most national citizens are of the opinion that the US has the best health care in the world and that’s the reason why Mexico is having a difficult time of maintaining life for it’s people. Supposedly Americans have access to great medical care and health insurance so may be protected from facing the issues arising in Mexico for their people and their government. So a question arises, why are we still maintaining our health better than the citizens of Mexico?
There certainly is a high regard for the health care in our country but a huge piece of the puzzle that we have that other countries do not is the Center for Disease Control. This organization stands between us and the many illnesses that could do damage in our country. The CDC cooperates with the World Health Organization to detect, zero in on, and track the rise of any contagious disease, and then helps in reducing the outbreak while quickly looking or creating treatments, cures and vaccines. Our medical system is more forward thinking than others in that the reporting to the CDC is greater than in third world countries.
Other factors affecting other countries, making them more susceptible to health crisiss like the current swine flu outbreak are other issues that the face such as: poor and dirty water supplies, lack of good nutrition or generalized malnutrition, lack of education about diseases, poor hygiene, communal living
So although we definitely are facing some serious health care issues and people are questioning not only the benefits of the health insurance system, but also the entire health care system in general, realize that the government does work to keep us healthy by providing a good clean water supply, access to nutritious food, and a government agency to monitor the spread of diseases that is fully armed with the resources to address the outbreak in the US.
There is a crisis now, but a good thing to remember is that the government is doing a number of things correctly despite the parts in health care that need correcting. Besides health insurance and medical care are only part of the resources available for us, many other public health factors are in place for us. As you view the flu crisis, remember our nation is being protected by a broad public health system.