Access to basic healthcare for everybody

One out of three persons living on this planet do not have access to basic health care – that makes 2.5 billion people.

Some of these people live in countries that are simply too poor. About 1 billion people live in so-called ‘low income countries’, which means that the economic activity in these countries is worth less than a thousand euros per person per year. (To compare: the economic activity in Belgium is worth about 36 thousand euro per person per year.)

To enable low income countries to provide basic health care, every person living in one of the so-called ‘high income countries’ would have to transfer 36 euro to a person living in a low-income country – that makes 10 cents out of every 100 euros.

Other people who do not have access to basic health care live in countries that are wealthy enough. Most of the so-called ‘middle income countries’ don’t need international financial assistance. Their problem is that they are trying to conquer a bigger share of the global economic activity, and keeping wages as low as possible is one way to achieve that. To keep wages low, however, governments of lower middle income countries also keep taxation low – and that means they cannot afford to provide basic health care. read more ...

{itpshare}