You are on page 1of 7

Neyer 1

Hannah Neyer

Mr. Sassin

HUM 200

25 April 2017

Globalization and its Effects on Human Well Being

When first starting this project, globalization was thought of as the sharing of ideas and

how to apply them across national borders. This can be demonstrated in many ways such as in

the environment, economy, political, social, and cultural areas (Mukherjee and Krieckhas 152).

This relates very well to the idea of human wellbeing which is the state of being happy, healthy,

and prosperous for your overall health. There are also five different elements of human wellbeing

which are career, social, financial, physical, and community wellbeing.

Globalization is a lot of times thought about in the business and economy since because

this is where a lot of what we know as globalization originates from. This has everything to do

with peoples financial and career wellbeing. For instance if a factory moves production

overseas because it is cheaper to produce a product in China, then this will cause some people to

loss there job thus have no income so thus there financial wellbeing would be severally

influenced as well as their career wellbeing because they would no longer have a career. One

could also look on this positively, because the company has moved production to china where it

is cheaper to make the good, the good now can be sold for less money than before. Depending on

the product this could greatly impact ones physical wellbeing for the better as well as their

financial wellbeing because the product now costs less than it did originally. This also can
Neyer 2

happen in health care as well as in business.

There is some controversy between people as weather globalization is good for our

economy or if it is bad. Authors Nisha Mukherjee and Jonathan Krieckhaus state that Critics

argue that globalization leads to economic stagnation, greater vulnerability to economic shocks,

diminishes sovereignty, and higher income inequality (151). This is because if the economy

becomes so depended on other country for its progression eventually there is no compaction for

this economy which leads to stagnation. Also because of vast globalization if one economy takes

a hit then so does the whole worlds economy which is not good for anyone. On the other side of

this Devon Herrick states that Global competition could lower the cost of some medical

procedures. At the same time, increase international competition for quality medical personnel

(22). This article thinks that because of the compaction between hospitals and countries that this

will lower costs of health care and create competition which would be good for the whole

industry to improve. As of right now hospitals are not competing on an international scale. Most

are just competing on a national scale and with medical tourism this could case hospitals to look

past there national borders to other hospitals that werent opponents before and challenge them

more then what they are being challenged now.

As of right now, many of the hospitals in the United States do not compete directly with

hospitals from other nations. Most of the time people think that people are traveling to the United

States to get better medical care, but many people are finding that for some medical procedures it

is cheaper to go out of country to have the procedure performed. This brings up the idea of

medical tourism which according to medical tourism.com it is the act of traveling outside ones

own area to receive health care (1). This can include most major medical procedures such as

heart bypass, hip replacement, knee replacement, gastric bypass, and many more. There are more
Neyer 3

and more people who are going to other countries to get cheaper medical procedures with the

same competence and sterility as in the United States. The down side of this is that the majority

of the insurance companies in the United States will not pay for someone to go overseas to get a

medical procedure done even with the extreme price cut in other countries.

It is argued that medical tourism should be paid for by insurance because it can save the

insurance company as well as the individual money that could be better used somewhere else.

Also people pay into this system to insure that they have medical coverage for medical

procedures. If the person who is paying into this system chooses to have a medical procedures

performed in a place where it would cost less than in the traditional setting the argument is then

that insurance should cover the procedure even if there in a different country (Herrick 24).

Others think that insurance companies shouldnt have to pay for procedures done

overseas because they dont know what kind of facilities that the hospital has. Also upon coming

back into the United States physicians in the United States might not except that patient back into

their practice because of the liability of dealing with a possible mistakes that the doctor in the

mother country might have caused (Herrick 25). Another aspect is the in increases the amount of

business that the United States hospitals receive because without the option of the insurance

companies paying for out of country medical procedures one would have to go to a hospital in

the united states for the procedure.

Insurance is also an issue with Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). TCM is based on

the Understanding of the human body is based on the holistic understanding of the universe

(Introduction 1). Because of this the treatment of diseases is not based on the symptoms that the

person presents with they are treated by differentiation of syndromes (Introduction 1). TCM
Neyer 4

includes procedures such as acupuncture which has been shown to decrease pain, treatment of

some diseases, and more. There are many people who say that they want to try these different

aspects of health care but almost all of the insurance companys do not cover treatment of TCM.

Many say that this is due to that fact that there is not enough credible research done on the issue

for the insurance companies to be sure that it is worth covering these treatments. The research

that has been done to date has not been able to determine whether the effect on the human body

is real or if it is just the placebo effect (Giordano, Hutchison, and Benedikter, 32).

It is also argued that we need these other ways of treating people to be able to really treat

the problem and not just put a band aid over a bullet wound. In the article written by James

Giordno, Paul Hutchison, and Roland Benedikter its stats

What becomes more clearly evident is that any definition of health seeks to acknowledge

the complex, integrative nature of person and the need for multiple dimension of

medicine to sustain such integrity. This fortifies the need for medicine to address both

disease and illness though preventive, curative, and palliative/healing practices (32-33).

This quote talks about how we need more than just care we need to address not just that they are

sick and how to get them better, but also what caused them to get this sickness and how can we

prevent them from getting worse, getting it again, or in some instances getting it at all.

At the end of this project our ideas of globalization had changed from what they first

started out to be. Now we can expand on our original ideas of globalization to encompass also

ideas, practices, religions, customs, teaching, and even health care to all areas of the world. With

this knowledge we can better understand a variety of methods and how they can best be used to

bring us to a common solution.


Neyer 5

Work Cited
Neyer 6

Giordano, James. Hutchison, Paul. Benediter, Roland. Culture, Sustainability, and Medicine in

the Twenty-First Century. Re-grounding the Focus of Medicine Amidst the Current

Global Systemic Shift and the Forces of the Market:Elements for a Contemporary Social

Philosophy of Medicine. Springer. Vol 23. No 1, 2010, pp. 29-41. JSTOR,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/4060258

Herrick, Devon. Medical Tourism: Global Competition in Health Care. National Center for

Policy Analysis, no. 304, 2007, pp. 1-40. JSTOR. 1-56808-178-2

Introduction to Chinese Medicine/TCM. 2003-2009, tcmpage.com. Accessed 10 April 2017.

Medical Tourism Guide. Medical Toursim.com. 2017.

http://www.medicaltourism.com/Forms/medicaltourismguide/medicaltourismguide.aspx

Mukherjee, Nisha. & Krieckhaus, Jonathan. Globalization and well-being International

Political Science Review, vol. 33, No. 2, 2012, pp. 150-170 JSTOR,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/41428098
Neyer 7

You might also like