History of Health Care

Health care today is expensive and insurance is helpful, but may not cover all medical expenses and may itself not be affordable. How did healthcare get to where it is today, both in terms of medicine and insurance?

Medicine has been practiced as far back as Ancient Egypt and farther. However, this medicine we would not recognize as medicine today. The first practices of healing where religious in nature. Priests, medicine men, other religious leaders would perform rituals in order to heal an ailment. At the same time herbal remedies where also used as the first medicines. As time went on people began to understand more about the human body. Egyptians removed growths on skin and learned about the body through dissection during mummification. Greeks introduce the ideas of exercise and healthy eating and the theory that health was related to bodily fluids and these ideas continued well into the Middle Ages. In the beginning of the Renascence science began to take over medicine when dissection of human corpse was no longer illegal. Next came the discovery of bacteria through the work of scientist like Louis Pasture in the nineteenth century, proving that bacteria was the cause of ailments, not bad air (Slonczewski and Foster, p.16). Studies where also being done to pin point causes of disease epidemics, such as the one by John Snow who pinpointed that one well that was contaminated was the cause of the cholera outbreak in London (Slonczewski and Foster, p. 994). In the 20^th century antibiotics such as penicillin where discovered, transplants and blood transfusions where safely completed and new medicines are developed based on ongoing scientific research. Unfortunately advances in medicine also cause more expenses. It takes money to fund research as well as the production of medical equipment and drugs. Some of these costs are carried on the consumer in their medical bills others through taxes.

Health insurance is a relatively new concept; in fact medical insurance in the United States did not come about until around the 1920’s. Before this time medical expenses were low because medical technology had not fully begun to develop and people where treated in their homes. Cost of medical care was not a chief worry at the time as much as missing work because of sickness, and the loss of pay that went with it, was. So around 1915 a type of insurance called “sickness funds” was put in place to compensate for any lost wages due to illness. About this time railroad, lumber, and mining companies were setting up medical services for their employees or they had contracts with medical groups to provide care for workers. By the 1930’s many employers provided prepaid contracts with health groups for their employees. In the mean time medical cost were raising, and the demand for medical care was increasing. In the 1930’s the depression hit and money was short everywhere. It was then that the first structured insurance was formed by hospitals, Blue Cross and then Blue Shield. After these two companies paved the way, commercial insurance companies began to offer health insurance in the 1940’s. By the 1960’s 75% of Americans had health insurance. In the 1960’s insurance for the elderly and low income through Medicare and Medicaid came about, funded through the government. This was the start of insurance how we know it today.

Today we are facing high costs of medical care and insurance, both of which are expensive. For those who cannot afford the cost one option is to go without. Should those who can afford medicine and doctors be the only ones to receive care? I know that receiving care involves payment to help keep clinics and hospitals running, but healthcare has evolved to fit the consumer society, if you cannot pay or conform to their requirements you do not receive the care. Insurance was created to help now it has become a hindrance to many, some companies refuse to offer coverage because of your medical history and most is expensive. I feel a change needs to take place so that all, not just the young, healthy and those who can afford it, receive health care, however I am not sure what that change should be.

Works Cited:

Slonczewski, Joan L., and John W. Foster. Microbiology An Evolving Science. New York: W.W. Norton, 2009. Print.

http://encyclopedia.farlex.com/doctors,+history+of

http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/thomasson.insurance.health.us

http://www.lwv.org/Content/ContentGroups/StudyTaskforces/HealthCare/HCET_BP_EvolutionHealthCareUS.pdf

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/314/7097/1823

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Health Care

This blog will be dedicated to the topic of health care in relation to inequality and globalization. As a student looking into going into the medical field and maybe some day working overseas as well as in the United States, I am interested in my future career in light of globalization and inequality. Health care is a problem world wide as well and in the United States. From the information I have acquired in the past few years from watching the news I know that in the US many people who need health care are going without because they cannot afford insurance and certainly can not afford the medical bills they will be charged. These people are the elderly and the poor in our society. My globalization class talked about the “invisible poor” and how they are living in the worst part of cities and striving to live, some panhandling because they can make more money there than with an “acceptable” job. We discussed how in the world today our society is a consumer society and we strive to earn money to buy more things or the ideas that companies are presenting to us in their ads and that the poor today are “failed consumers.” I think that in much the same way the poor and elderly are “failed consumers” of the medical field. Hospitals are businesses and what they are selling could make lives better but because the poor and elderly can not afforded health care they do without. If these people choose to purchase medicines they need they could be spending money that they need for food or housing. Much is being discussed in the new today and for the past few years about healthcare and the state it is in, in the United States, in fact this is not new as an article from the Washington Post in 2006 demonstrates( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/12/AR2006121201436.html). Through my blogging on this topic I would like to learn more about the health care in the United States and how it relates in the inequality and globalization in relation to the country where I live and also in the state of Washington. I am interested in the relationship of inequality in health care in relation to life expectance as was presented in this blog http://www.willwilkinson.net/flybottle/2009/10/20/inequalities-in-health-care/. I would also like to find out what the state of health care is like in other countries including first and third world countries. How is health care related to globalization in these areas? I would like to come out of this with a clearer picture of the career path I have chosen outside of the world of science. This may even help me be better at what ever job I choose.