Modernization and Our Global Future Health Disparity essay

Nowadays, human society is rapidly progressing and the social environment of an individual is constantly changing.

It should be pointed out that, to a significant extent, the changes that currently occurs in the world are basically determined by the rapid scientific and technological progress that mankind has made within the last few decades. In fact, the scientific and technological breakthrough provided ample opportunities to develop different fields which traditionally remained untouched by the new technologies or even under-researched. At the same time such fields as health care got an opportunity to widely implement the recent achievements in science and technologies that could increase the effectiveness of health care services that are extremely important nowadays. However, in actuality, the scientific and technological progress did not make the health care services really accessible to absolutely all people even in the most developed countries, while the level of health care services in developing and under-developed countries still remains at a very low level. Obviously, such a situation is really dangerous, taking into consideration the recent trends to globalization when practically all the countries of the world are getting more and more integrated, the cooperation between countries increases and, in perspective, the movement of goods, capitals and people will be practically unlimited by any boundaries but even nowadays such boundaries are often formal.

On analyzing the current situation and the future perspectives of the development of society and health care system, it should be pointed out that it is quite probable that the existing disparity will grow in the future considerably. First of all, it should be said that even nowadays, it is possible to trace the gap that exists between representatives of different social classes even in such well-developed countries as theUS. To put it more precisely, the position of the upper classes seems to be incomparably better than the position of the lower classes. It is not a secret that people living in poverty have not only scarce opportunities to receive a good health care services in time but they are often deprived of an opportunity to have a medical insurance and, basically, they hope for the assistance of the government ad state funding of health care services or for charitable organization that attempt to support those in need. It is necessary to realize that this problem is really serious since many people are practically deprived of an opportunity to get an effective treatment, especially if they suffer from some serious disease. In fact, if a representative of a low class suffers from some serious or incurable diseases his/her chances to die are considerably higher than those of a representative of upper class who can have not only insurance and well-qualified health care but who can also pay for the treatment and work of the best specialists.

As a result, many people that cannot afford the costs of the health care services of the top level are often in a desperate position and their last hope is often either state support or charity, which though do not solve their problems but rather attempt to help them at the moment. What is meant here is the fact that the state actually ignores the problem of the healthcare system, especially in relation to people who cannot afford insurance, for instance, and who need state assistance in the provision of heath care services. Instead, the state simply develops programs targeting at funding of health care services to people in need while the cause of the problem still remains unresolved, i.e. the reform of health care system which would guarantee all citizens an opportunity to receive an equally good treatment is still not implemented and, consequently, instead of a stable system of redistribution of funds in the health care system where the financing of health care services would proportional to the real needs of people is still an unachievable ideal. This situation is really dangerous since the number of people in need may potentially grow especially due to the immigrants from Latin American, for instance, who do not have even any legal support or protection, while their number may grow considerably in the future. As a result, the funding of health care services for people in need may become a serious burden for the federal and state budgets.

Nevertheless, the disparity in health care system of developed countries is only a part of the problem since, nowadays, the globalization makes the creation of an effective health care system a really global problem. It is not a secret, for instance, that such disease as AIDS is rapidly spreading in African countries where this problem threatens to the survival of entire nations. Other developing countries of the world have similar problems but they cannot really change the situation for better because their level of development, their scientific, technological, and economic opportunities are insufficient to cope with such diseases as AIDS. This is why these countries need international support to cure the most serious epidemic diseases but, unfortunately, often the problem of the effective health care protection of developing countries remains ignored by developed countries.

At any rate, the current assistance of the developed countries is limited with aids to developing countries which is actually not a real help to developing countries to create an effective health care system which has its own technological and financial resources to cope with the most serious disease. Instead, this aid is just a way to send medicaments produced in developed countries to developing ones that means investment in the pharmaceutical industries of developed countries, while it would be more effective to supply developing countries with technologies of production of such medicaments and prepare local medical specialists in developed countries. In such a way, it would be possible to make the health care system of developed country really effective and of the high quality, but now it is a desirable and not real goal.

However, it is impossible to ignore the backwardness of health care services in developing countries because the migration in the world increases that means that people from developing countries are immigrating to developed countries and this trend will grow stronger due to the process of globalization. This means that in the future the threat of the spread of some diseases in developed countries because of the high level of immigration from developing countries will increase along with the growing number of immigrants.

In such a situation it is hardly possible to implement some really effective restrictions in access to developed countries. Primarily, developed countries often need the new labor force from developing countries. Secondly, it is often impossible to distinguish whether an immigrant is all or not. Finally, in the future and even nowadays it is not necessarily that people had a direct contact to spread some infectious disease. For instance, the recent example of SARS perfectly proves the extent to which new epidemics may be dangerous to the world. It is not a secret that the process of globalization leads to the growing contacts between people living in different parts of the world. Even now the products are to customers from different parts of the world and it proves beyond a doubt that this trend will be even stronger in the future. Consequently, it will be simply impossible to avoid epidemics similar to SARS that means that the health care system should also be globalized.

Thus, taking into account all above mentioned, it is possible to conclude that the current situation in the health care system is extremely disturbing on both national and international levels. In fact, the health care system is characterized by the high level of disparity. As a result, many people are deprived of an opportunity to receive health care services they need. This problem is not just a problem of developing countries which do not have neither technological nor  financial resources to provide health care services of a high quality to all people but it is also a problem of the most developed countries such as the US. Consequently, it is important to reform the national and develop the new global health care system that should provide health care services to all people equally since nowadays, figuratively speaking, the health of one individual may influence the influence of the nation, while the health of the nation influences the nation of the entire world because of the growing risks of new epidemics which could be rapidly spread worldwide because of the increasing contacts and cooperation between people worldwide.