is that neither can be addressed in isolation
I am writing this as a result of watching Melissa Harris-Perry this morning, where she had a focus on issues of health care - an overall shortage of doctors, a specific shortage of primary care physicians, the costs of getting the necessary education versus the returns one can get (in certain practices), and problems of geographical distribution of physicians.
But what also was mentioned is that much of what is being addressed in medical treatment are issues outside of medicine - the conditions of housing (asbestos, lead based paint, and to which we can add vermin and insects), the lack of appropriate nutrition, and we could also mention lack of air conditioning and lack of heat.
These are issues of poverty. These are issues of inequitable distribution of resources. This is barriers to those who might want to provide necessary services. These are issues of policy silos that cannot fix issues in isolation.
These are economic issues - we spend too much addressing things after the fact that are far cheaper to address with preventative measures, and we ignore the lose of economic production that comes from healthy workers and the incomes they spend.
Most of all, these are moral issues, because we do not address the needs of too many of the most vulnerable of those who live in this country.
What we need is political leadership that understands these connections, and will give them visibility.
What we also need is our insistence as citizens, participants in the political process, activists that these issues be kept in the public eye.
As much wealth as there is in this nation, there is no excuse for the high degree of poverty we still tolerate.
If we want to talk about economic competitiveness, can we continue to waste the talents of almost 1/4 of our young people because of the inequities we still tolerate?
If we want to talk about American Exceptionalism, should it not be how we will not tolerate such inequity?
MHP closed her show today with Barbara Jordan's 1976 Democratic Convention Keynote. Here issome audio from the beginning of that speech.