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Anywhere you have extreme poverty and no national health insurance, no promise of health care regardless of social standing, that's where you see the sharp limitations of market-based health care.

Paul Farmer

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Paul Farmer
Age: 65
Born: 1959
Born: October 26
Anthropologist
Human Rights Activist
Medical Anthropologist
Physician
North Adams
Massachusetts
Health
Anywhere
Social
Capitalism
Insurance
Care
Market
Limitations
National
Sharp
Based
Regardless
Promise
Limitation
Standing
Extreme
Poverty
Extremes

More quotes by Paul Farmer

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Again, conventional Catholicism does not much appeal to me.
Paul Farmer
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God gives us humans everything we need to flourish, but he's not the one who's supposed to divvy up the loot. You want to see where Christ crucified abides today? Go to where the poor are suffering and fighting back, and that's where He is.
Paul Farmer
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The idea that because you're born in Haiti you could die having a child. The idea that because you're born in you know Malawi your children may go to bed hungry. We want to take some of the chance out of that.
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The idea that some lives matter less is the root of all that is wrong with the world.
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Ebola has not yet come into contact with modern medicine in West Africa. But when protocols for the provision of high quality supportive care are followed, the case fatality rate for Ebola may be lower than 20 percent.
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I would say that, intellectually, Catholicism had no more impact on me than did social theory.
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What I can argue is that no one should have to die of a disease that is treatable.
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The essence of global health equity is the idea that something so precious as health might be viewed as a right.
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That's when I feel most alive, when I'm helping people.
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I've been asked a lot for my view on American health care. Well, 'it would be a good idea,' to quote Gandhi.
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At the same time, it is obvious that clinicians in Haiti are faced with different, and, in fact, greater, challenges when attempting to treat complications of HIV disease.
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For me, an area of moral clarity is: you're in front of someone who's suffering and you have the tools at your disposal to alleviate that suffering or even eradicate it, and you act.
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We have to design a health delivery system by actually talking to people and asking, 'What would make this service better for you?' As soon as you start asking, you get a flood of answers.
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Equity is the only acceptable goal
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The world is full of miserable places. One way of living comfortably is not to think about them or, when you do, to send money
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I think that looking forward it's easy to imagine more constructive help for Haiti.
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Everybody should be interested in access to primary and secondary education for everybody.
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If I am hungry, that is a material problem if someone else is hungry, that is a spiritual problem.
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I think, sometimes, that I'm going nuts, and that perhaps there is something good about blocking clean water for those who have none, making sure that illiterate children remain so, and preventing the resuscitation of the public health sector in the country most in need of it. Lunacy is what it is.
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People call me a saint and I think, I have to work harder. Because a saint would be a great thing to be.
Paul Farmer