When reading about Ms Litte, I can only attribute what happened to greed. They medically assaulted her. And this happens all the time. She isn’t given a choice on the treatment or the recovery. They just keep forcing her to do more and more things so the bills rack up and up and everyone can line their pockets. This can only be described as medical rape. They forced her to something she did not want to do without giving her any options, and they even sedated her so they could have a plastic surgeon close the wound rather than letting it heal like she wanted. It is greed like this and power like this that needs to be removed from medicine. Letting medicine be monetized takes the choice of care out of the hands of people who need the care and in to the hands of those who only want money.

I have a personal story about dermatologists overcharging ridiculous amounts. I had a rash that I couldn’t explain on my back and chest. I took several visits to the dermatologist before it cleared. Now let me explain these visits. They were each less than 15 minutes long, the dermatologist did hands on work in on 2 of the 7 appointments. And the medicine he gave me, I later found out could have been bought at a pharmacy for $40. But this man, for less than 2 hours of work and half of a $40 tube of medicine, billed my insurance over $4,000 for the treatment.

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand why the PPACA is so controversial. I think free, universal healthcare with high standards should be a right to everyone as a human being. There are certain things necessary to survive in this world. Water, food, and shelter are the three survival experts will preach, but without healthcare, a small illness could kill you or leave you disabled. We, as America, are supposed to be the best country in the world. A place where everyone can have a high standard of living. Why is being able to get healthy not a right given to us. It would only benefit the country. People could return from illness or injury back to the workforce. More check ups and preventative treatments would allow for a longer healthier life and more time in the workforce.

I feel like I need to play the devil’s advocate for a second. When we read about extreme externalities, the positive example was education. I think this could be debated as a negative. K-12 is something everyone pays for through taxes, and yes it helps students. But if also has negative side effects. One is the situation in most high schools involves a lot of young people spreading drugs and alcohol usage to their friends. Another is the rampant plague of bullying that leads to many suicides, self harm incidents, long term self esteem problems, and school shootings. My last negative is the common core and no child left behind systems that are currently in use. This drops the standards and doesn’t properly prepare students for adulthood.

I find in interesting when you look at healthcare. The first reading of this dual unit talks about healthcare. One thing it mentions is how we, as the consumers of health care, are at a disadvantage. Most dentists recommend two visits per year. But what if we really only need one? What if we are paying double just because someone is taking advantage of us. It is a similar thing with cancer patients. I don’t know if there is some secret cure that they hide, but I do know, from having multiple family members and friends pass from cancer, that doctors don’t give it their all. They start small, make money while the cancer spreads, then go big and either profit off allowing the patient to die after waiting to long or off nearly killing them by using stronger medicine after the cancer destroys their body for so long. I have always found myself skeptical about the medical industry for those reasons.

For my book review I am going to read “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition.” I chose this book because the title sounded intriguing to me.

In my personally opinion, after thinking of the question: “Can the poor b e trusted?” I have come to the conclusion that no, the poor can not be trusted. I would love to politely debate this with anyone who would like to reply, but here is my argument. I know some people including family and friends who are using government aid of some sort from financial aid, to income assistance and food stamps. One of them used financial aid for college, dropped the class, then used the college refund, which he didn’t pay for, to buy video games. Another uses his income assistance checks to work less and be a member of a local country club. People will do anything they can to improve their lives, poor people included, so giving them help, is necessary, but is often abused and taken advantage of.

In the Hans Rosling reading I found it interesting how wealth and life expectancy play together. Obviously more wealthy countries and people will have access to better medical care which will lead to a longer better life. But it also mentioned the reverse. Longer lives leading to wealth. I think this is because the longer you live the more time you have to advance yourself monetarily. You can educate yourself, get better jobs, and see new technologies get introduced.

The Conflict Trap confuses me the most. As a pacifist, I find war atrocious to begin with. But to wage war, put your people in danger and their quality of life at risk continuously just baffles me. If the countries in the bottom billion that were in the conflict trap could find ways to make peace it would not only stop the violence, but it could allow progress towards getting out of poverty to begin.

While reading the Bottom Billion, I was honestly given a sobering experience. I knew that some people in the world had it rough. But then again I thought some people in America had it bad as well. But in America, our poverty stricken people have so much. They don’t sleep on mud floors, they have access to clean water and food. They get education and have bathrooms rather than latrines or a stump. Nobody in America really has it that bad when compared to the bottom billion.