Better Health Is a Cure for the Crisis

The struggle against poverty and the protection of health to safeguard the dignity of every individual are at the top of the list of Millennium Development Goals, the document approved by the United Nations in year 2000. Poor health engenders a vicious circle by which large sections of the population are unable to perform those economic activities that would pull them out of poverty, which in turns prevents people from devoting resources to prevention, diagnosis and treatment. This vicious circle can only be broken by intervening on the state of health of the general population.
In rapidly growing economies such as Brazil, Russia, India and China (the so-called BRICs), the need to extend health coverage is becoming a priority for public policy. For instance, after a 2002 reform which had introduce a health care system based on low-level provision of public health and private insurance for those who wanted adequate care, since 2010 China has introduced another reform, this one based on the concept of national heath service, which is now being implemented. In several advanced economies the goal of universal coverage is yet to be reached. In the United State, the reform passed by Barack Obama, which is going in this direction, is facing crippling opposition coming from the GOP, as well as medical, insurance, and pharmaceutical lobbies, which disingenuously argue that universal health care is economically unsustainable.
In countries that can boast a national health service, such as the UK, Italy, and others, troubled public finances are putting at risk the level of health care provision actually guaranteed, often signaling a reversal of trends toward better health indicators with respect to the recent past. The need to cut on waste and inefficiency often has the unintended consequence of making the provision of health trail behind scientific progress.
In recent years, a growing number are arguing that policies aimed at the containment of health spending are damaging for the economy. In fact, current expenditure that warrants a good general state of health is productive, because it helps economic growth. Investment in new and technologically advance medical facilities in substitution of crumbling hospitals improves health and provides demand for the medical instruments industry.

The recovery from the economic crisis that started in 2008, the support of economic growth in emerging economies and a kickstart for development in backward countries all require policies that rigorously allocate resources and cut on inefficiencies. But if these policies do not guarantee equality of access to health care for the whole population, the waste would be enormous.