Bailouts create health pandemic

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Bailouts create health pandemic By SCOTT BARNHART AND AMY HAGOPIAN

November 24, 2008 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Taxpayers are now left holding the bag for $1 trillion in debt

incurred by capitalists run rampant, brought about largely by a frenzy

of deregulation over the past decade. These bailouts are as dramatic

as a pandemic of influenza resulting in the Department of Health

declaring marshal law, closing schools and restricting travel.

Some estimate a pandemic flu outbreak could cause up to a million

deaths in the U.S. We argue the financial cost of government bailouts

of unregulated corporate excess could cause even more death than a

pandemic flu. The poverty, stress and violence caused by loss of jobs,

ruination of retirement plans and slashes in health and education

secondary to the unraveling of the nation's financial system will be

associated with significant increases in rates of illness and death.

The current and anticipated bailouts may avert a collapse of the

economy but does not eliminate unsupported levels of debt transferred

to U.S. taxpayers.

Roughly half of U.S. deaths are associated with social and behavioral

factors. Education, poverty, inequality, structural racism and access

to health care are known determinants of health. Rising stress is

known to be associated with tobacco and alcohol use, poor nutrition,

high-risk sexual activity, domestic violence and suicide. Of the 2.4

million U.S. deaths in 2000, tobacco claimed 18 percent, poor diet and

physical activity 17 percent, alcohol 3.5 percent, motor vehicle

crashes 2 percent, sexual behavior 1 percent and illicit drug use 1

percent. Even small increases in those areas will translate into

thousands of excess deaths.

The implications of the debt crisis already are rippling through the

economy with layoffs, wage stagnation, widening disparities between

the rich and poor and rising numbers of uninsured -- now at 46 million

people. Those economic perturbations create social instability that

inevitably leads to adverse health consequences.

We can learn much from the global economy about the effects of debt on

health. The oil glut of the 1980s led to ridiculous loans to

resource-poor countries, often incurred by scoundrel dictators but

left to the citizenry to pay back. When poor countries couldn't pay

the loans at the exorbitant interest rates that came with them, the

World Bank and International Monetary Fund required developing

countries to implement austere " structural adjustment " reductions in

support for education and health care, along with privatization of

national assets. These reductions in health and education had

catastrophic health effects for the next two generations.

If we think of the current fiscal crisis as the equivalent of a

pandemic's effects on health, we should think carefully about where

scarce public resources will go. Instead of cuts, we should be making

significant investments in human infrastructure, health care access,

education, housing, jobs and poverty reduction. Cuts should be made in

areas that don't contribute to health -- such as defense, the war on

drugs and corporate welfare.

As with any pandemic, active surveillance is required to monitor the

impacts on health, followed by rapid mitigation of adverse trends.

Crucial institutions such as schools, colleges and health departments

must be preserved. We recommend Congress fund public health

surveillance and remediation as part debt restructuring. In addition,

Congress should direct the Congressional Budget Office to analyze

future federal appropriations for impact on health.

For example, will the $150 billion to be allocated to AIG improve

health compared with making college accessible to income-constrained

students? This administration has privatized profits for the few,

while socializing losses for the rest of us. Congress should, at the

very least, make population health its highest priority.

Barnhart, M.D., MPH, practices medicine and teaches at the

Schools of Medicine and Public Health, University of Washington. Amy

Hagopian, Ph.D., teaches public health at the UW.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/389232_pandemic25.html