THE NEED FOR A LOGICALLY PLANNED WORLD

D.  SOCIAL CONDITIONS (cont.)

Health

Health concerns and health care comprise a subject of great importance to all of us.  Every human being is entitled to an opportunity to lead a happy and healthy life; and to adequate, appropriate, and affordable medical services, for maintenance of good health, as well as treatment and care for illness, injury, and disability.  It would be the duty of a worldwide government to assess the health and medical needs of all people, and to effectuate plans for the provision of sufficient and appropriate facilities and personnel to properly meet those needs.  Regarding the costs connectewd therewith, there would likely need to be established a form of worldwide health insurance, which would be financed by all wage earners, according to income level, and supplemented by employer and government funding.  Nutrition, sanitation, and immunization needs should also be determined and provided for on a worldwide basis.

A particularly important health issue pertains to drinking water.  A recent World Health Organization survey of eighty nine countries determined that less than three-quarters of their urban populations, and only forty two percent of their rural residents, had access to safe drinking water.  This absence of a basic human entitlement--probably compounded in some places by the fact that people on this side of the line are not permitted to obtain water on that side of the line--ought be remedied as soon as possible.

In addition to these steps, research must be continued and expanded in efforts to finally conquer nightmares such as cancer, heart disease, and AIDS.  Furthermore, and even more disgraceful, is the present continued existence of numerous ailments for which prevention and treatment are readily available; yet from which too many people--including ten million children under five years of age--die each year.  These include a multitude of infectious maladies, diarrhea-related ailments, acute respiratory infections, and malaria.  To my thinking, permitting people to continue perishing from sickness for which prevention and/or treatment readily exist is tantamount to countenancing murder.

Once more, I would venture that the absence of the huge costs connected with military spending in every country would suffice to cover much of the added medical expense that these suggestions would occasion.

                                                         * * * * *



Hunger

In recent times, the world's food production has risen significantly; and even more widespread production is readily achievable.  And yet, ironically, millions upon millions of men, women, and children continue to be underfed and undernourished.  In fact, a considerable percentage of them are actually starving to death.

Famines and drought still strike all too frequently, taking their toll--particularly among the young, elderly, and infirm.  Famines have been with us since Biblical times, and doubtless long before.  But in this day and age, with all the resources and technology that are available to us, it is a shameful disgrace to permit a single human being to go hungry.

Food shortages can be attributed to to a number of causes--for all of which a remedy is either presently within our grasp, or easily capable of attainment.  When famines strike today, they are usually viewed as "national" problems, and limited amounts of aid are tendered via governments and organizations within other countries.

A further factor behind several recent episodes of deadly hunger has been the occurrence of warfare in certain places.  There, people are unable to pursue their regular agricultural and other productive occupations.  And so, the entire population within that locale goes hungry.  Furthermore, food aid mercifully sent from outside often does not reach its intended beneficiaries, because it is snatched up and consumed upon its appearance by the combatants whose paths it happens to cross.  Or should it be not thus needed by the belligerents who happen upon it, it is confiscated nonetheless, lest the "enemy" might need and obtain it.  In either case, the suffering innocent citizenry for whom it was intended never receive it.

In a borderless world, food production, food supply, and food distribution can be viewed and dealt with on a worldwide basis.  Scarcity here can be offset by abundance there.  There would still be farmers and farm organizations, who would produce crops for profit.  But none should receive subsidies in return for refraining from growing a certain type or quantity of crop--if it is needed somewhere;  or worse, as recompense for destroying all or part of their harvest.

Farm prices and food prices would in addition be basically uniform throughout the world.  The only differences in final cost to the consumer might be related to expenses regarding transportation and/or storage.  And perhaps this too might be corrected via a form of government assistance for the purpose of "averaging out" of prices in order to maintain uniform levels and availability.

What the world basically needs is a single worldwide regulatory agency, consisting of a body of experts, whose principles would be based upon the well-being of the world as a whole--rather than economic or other benefit to a particular nation and/or its people--whose determinations would result in enforceable  law.  The consequent rewards may consist of our being saved from a tragedy of mass hunger that might one day come to destroya great many of us.

                                                     * * * * *