Is the Health Care Industry (And Pharmacy Schools) A Parasite on the Economy?
Earlier this year, we heard the good news that many of the smaller towns around the country were going to do just find because of the thriving health care industry. While this was all well and good (I mean it saved many steel and mining towns), the underlying message is not as uplifting. By becoming more reliant on the health care industry, we are essentially telling ourselves that our health in general is on more of a downward spiral (although we now have pricey, profitable machines to save us!). While health care has also evolved with technology, and enabled us to live to a much older age than we were previously able to, it has also evolved with poor health care habits, almost encouraging patients to continue on their unhealthy ways. The health care industry has only reached the levels it has because of poor health care, which in turn has led to increased numbers of patients in hospitals, forming a “parasitic” effect that is hard to get out of. Pharmacy school fits into all this by caring for the outpo
uring of health care and growing at the same exponential rate as the health care industry.
Many health care commentators have noticed this growing trend: as the health care industries essentially save our economy from running into the mud, they are at the same time partly responsible for the increase in child diabetes and other diseases that come from being overweight, a major problem in our society. Instead of putting billions of dollars into the health care industry, we could instead be pumping this money into education and infrastructure basics. The health care industry has become the “safe” realm to get a job into, because there’s a constant need for doctors, surgeons, nurses, pharmacists, and the many other types of health care professionals. This fact is directly reliant on the number of sick people, a number which is continuously rising due to our poor health care habits.
An article on the health care industry in the Huffington Post relates the ironic scene at a local pharmacy: the pharmacist (who undoubtedly went to school to practice pharmacy), is on the phone with insurance companies, dealing with irate customers, and watching customers with diabetes load up their carts with candies for holidays. Ironic to say the least. The pharmaceutical industry is the least to blame for our poor health and have tried to maintain a healthy society, although they continue to provide us a crutch to lead on, no matter what our health care issue is.
We are thus left in a conundrum as a society: we can ignore our stress about the economy and begin to eat healthy together, work out, and lead healthier lives, or we can continue on the path we’re on, producing unhealthy populations, but promoting the economy at the same time through health care. Pharmacists are on the neutral ground of this issue, continuing to provide their services in good or in bad times.
If you enjoyed this article, please bookmark it at del.icio.us »
This entry was posted on Friday, April 23rd, 2010 at 1:44 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
