ILL Health Care System

The entire health care system is ill! It concentrates on treating the sick, but does little to prevent them from becoming so. In fact the term 'health care' system takes care only of the sick. It treats only individuals, but does not attack the basic causes of illnesses, such as poverty and illiteracy. Far from encouraging people to lead healthy lives, our society encourages them to harm themselves, and a prime example is cigarette smoking. Unfortunately, profits come before people --- and there are too many people making too much money from tobacco, so that the tobacco industry continues to spend billions a year encouraging people to smoke, and the government allows them to do so. The question is: what sort of society lets a small group of people persuade the masses to engage in behavior which might kill them --- and then provides medical care to try to save them?