Facing Our Own Worst Enemy
What a rich learning experience this has been for me. I started disseminating the P.S.Y.C.H. plan information about the website to friends and family and then to Facebook. From there, I began approaching patients and colleagues. Knowing at some point that I would need to aggressively market the idea to the "movers and shakers" who command the ears of millions in mainstream media and the pocketbooks of the government, I began contacting policy analysts, foundations, congress people, and senior editors.
And then it hit me. This is why health care reform is so daunting. There's a huge complex that has grown up around keeping the system that just feeds on itself, then propagates more confusion and stress to feed itself. It's like a Möbius strip of dysfunction.
So, let's take a step back, take a breath, and think about what health care is at its most basic: one individual helping to care for another individual. Sure, sometimes there are extenuating circumstances, but overall, that's the basic relationship. Can we then create a system that accentuates the best of this relationship and deemphasizes the worst?
Absolutely. Again, if humans can put a satellite on a comet, we can figure this out.
In thinking about how things became so convoluted, it comes back once again to the almighty dollar. Money is a strong motivator for some people, but it's the primary motivator for business. And since – I reluctantly concede – the delivery of health care is a business, how can we mitigate the effects of the almighty dollar while keeping it's motivating force equally intact for patient, provider, and place?
Answer? Check out the plan.