The 1-2-3 of Healthcare Reform

Thank you Tricia, for your heart-felt compassion for my "double disaster" challenge. Yes, there are so many issues involved in healthcare and the solutions are not easy. I agree that a compromise of some kind would most likely be required. I also believe that with an integral approach we may be able to find a way to do this with the only compromises being the compromises of the first-tier levels accepting that they can't have it all their way...sounds easy...but since the first-tier levels have a built in tendency not to be able to see the other level's perspective...this is not so easy.

In gratitude, Mark

That is exactly why I say that doing the bare minimum ends up being more expensive to them in the long run! Because now, America has had enough of their Bullshit and won't stand for this system to remain in place. So all those who are making money because it is this way are in trouble now. Hopefully it won't be the Dr's who care about you but the Insurance companies who don't.

Ever seen Fight Club? I refer to this movie alot. But the scene where he describes to someone what he does for a living while sitting on the airplane/bus/train is classic and extremely instructive.

He describes with a witty jaded smile how he actually does do the math for the car companies that will decide whether or not to do a recall on a defective car that causes death. If the numbers are high enough, they do a recall. If not, its more cost effective to pay out in individual court cases after people die.

!!!!?

That's the kind of problem we're having. And they cut it too damned close for the people who end up losing their lives. And I consider this one of the factors which drove "Tyler Durden" insane to begin with - which ended up costing the city ALOT OF $$$$$! This is why decent human beings "Go Postal." So, you'd better believe there is somebody in an office somewhere who crunched the numbers which determined not to let your Dr. run those tests based on the degree of risk TO THEM!

The horror stories are infinite. Don't get me started.

I like that you brought in the Developmental Levels. This is great and I totally overlooked that. This would be a great way to express Skillful Means.

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Thank you, Mike.

LOL You are seeing a hole in my brain. And that is good. It's always harder for me to see those, and I need all the compassionate help I can get. I have trouble seeing the Quadrants. But I know at least this much: I am good at seeing thru the UL and the LR. I'm not a rookie at the LR. That's why I spotted the problem. I don't think I saw the problem in the bit that you quoted, but a few bits after that:

"I think education is a good correlation to healthcare because both education and health affect an individual’s ability to pursue the inalienable rights of Life, Liberty, and Happiness."

"While the nuts and bolts of our education system still needs a lot of work, I believe the 3-tiered structure that has evolved is inherently natural to our country’s ideals and current vMeme structures. Using this model, here is one possible scenario for an Integral “Big Three” approach to healthcare reform…"

"Semi-Public/Private Healthcare: Regulatory support and incentives for Cooperative, Charter, and Non-Profit healthcare groups."

This is such a giant gloss over the gap of quality control costs that I had to say something.

I just looked up charter schools and saw that many are simply shut down without option to solve the problem because they just don't produce the test scores that they have been contracted to produce. Imagine what would happen if one person were to decide they were gonna sue a Dr. for malpractice if someone reads the prescription pad the wrong way! Hundreds of people would be out of luck. Maybe thousands, under that kind of regulatory pressure (something similar happened to me). Not just for a month or a year while the Dr. is in court, but forever. A delayed school year is not the disaster that a delayed appendix operation would be. The good faith of patients cannot be assumed. And one small mistake would have too wide a wake of destruction. A school with kids needing an education is not the same. It's just not close enough imo to go there without some large extra solution to throw at it. And that is gonna cost alot of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$. This is not going to be affordable to the average tax payer like the school situation would be.

Now.

I get it that a community solution must be made room for. So, I'm thinking that inasmuch as the community IS qualified to assist in health care, they should be. This is a helluva lot more than they are assisting now and perhaps less than we might be able to idealize. That's a hair-ball. So, by all means, work this out.

I've added my 3 or 4 bits in on this in the thread about how would you spend the money to relieve suffering in the world. Now, obviously I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheeky there, but they are seeds of this sort of community thing I think you're talking about. Alot can be developed, and it could be designed to express at all Levels and in all Lines. I'll leave the Quads to you, as that is not my specialty at the moment.

I would love to read that article from the Journal, but alas. I am poor. And I know it will be hard for me to get through it. If you have any way of condensing it for me, that would be awesome. I don't know if it would be legal, but it would be awesome for me.

Blessings and thank you again.

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For just $14.95 a month, YOU TOO can offset your Karma Footprint by becoming a Member of Integral Life!

[has that already been done?]

Great attitude! I'm glad your mind is crystal clear and your heart is warm. Survivors are treasures. Thank you.

I think health care is viewed as a right for people at the (healthy) green meme and further onto second tier.

I like your 1-2-3 approach, given that we have so many of our population living at the traditional level.  Getting all three groups to agree on it would be difficult, as stated, since 1st tier VMmemes tend to avoid compromise.   I do believe there are plenty of rational orange people who deem it a right also, not a privilege.  It might be the higher-end, more aware oranges, so perhaps the orange vMeme is split.

Here's a basic point:  If just about every other 1st world (highly developed) nations can provide decent health care for all of their citizens, at lower percentages of their GDPs (way lower), and better health statistics for their citizens.  (The U.S. is at no. 24 down the list!).  It's absurd that we in the US are not doing what these other countries do.  The reasons imo are pathological greed at the top of the health insurance and drug companies.

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"When the two become as one, then shall ye enter the Kingdom of Heaven" - Causal Sage J.C.

Hey Corey, No problemo with the name "mistake." I had to LOL when I realized that a doctor was named in connection to my post on healthcare...great reminder that there really are no mistakes. Thanks for all your hard work on the site and all the rest... Mark

Mark:  

  Here are a few of my initial thoughts on "Integral City" and "Integral Conveyor Belts".  I'm putting it here because of your previous comment requesting further information, but might put it some other place where it is easier to find if other people seem interested in the idea and want to flesh it out more.

We need to build an integral city.  Perhaps initially only a virtual city, but nonetheless, to develop a culture and create change, there has to be actively participating members.  For an integral culture to develop, it needs the friction of the members to rub off the rough edges and make it develop to the next level.  Right now I think we’re sort of in the kindergarten integral stage.  We need to develop to the next stage where “rules” of engagement evolve and become important (middle-school) and help with general guidance.  Then we need to develop past that so as not to be trapped by the rigidity of concrete rules that can’t be applied to more complex situations: high school (form-op), college, and post-graduate levels (post-form-op).  First black and white, then shades of gray, then holarchies.  In other words, we need to develop from egocentric to ethnocentric to worldcentric and beyond.

  Building a city, virtual or otherwise, takes money.  I see that as the present major barrier to having an Integral City.  The integral group has members and we have brains.  I think we now need to put our money where our mouth is.  However, building a good city is like an investment, not just throwing the money down a black hole.  Thus, done correctly, an integral city can be a sustainable investment with any excess “profit” going to support further projects that engender further development, ad infinitum.  Unfortunately many initial projects are things that do not lend themselves well to investments, since they are more cultural and intellectual, not tangible capital goods.  Schools, universities, psychological and spiritual development, and scientific journals (like the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice) are all examples of what makes up a culture but historically are poorly rewarded.  Part of this is how culture has rewarded these areas, with banks and investment houses the ones that culture has rewarded financially (or allows to be rewarded).  However, in a culture that is integral and balanced, some of the profits from the banks and investment houses would be used to support the less money making, but still essential areas.  This is not merely for philanthropic reasons, but because these less directly money making areas are a necessary part and parcel of a culture and both help support and often even allow the creation of the money making ones.

  I’ve been using certain successful sub-cultures that I’ve been directly exposed to as the basis for my presentation, so they aren’t just theory.  However, one other major thing that makes these groups so successful is their strong culture of tithing.  In one of these cultures, most of the people give 5-10% of their net income in the form of a tithe.  In the other culture, they set up sort of a sliding scale tithing.

  I would suspect many people in integral life would find this idea of tithing somewhat uncomfortable, but that is why I’m putting it down here.  For an Integral City to live, it needs both people and money.  The integral community presently has people, it doesn’t have (significant) money.   Tithing is one way that spiritual communities have been successful in the past, thus I wanted to point out the financial barrier to building an Integral City so that people could see this as one possible solution.

  There are a lot more things I could say, but given a core group of integral leaders and financial support, “Integral City” could become a reality.  However, while we have the former, mostly, we don’t have the latter.  Thus, I think we need to decide to take that next step.  More about Integral City in later posts if people are interested, but what I’m really talking about here is a 10-20 year plan to build an Integral Conveyor Belt, not some quick fix.  I’m ready to start, how about you?

Yours,

MB

PS: In working on this article, I decided to see if there was a www.integralcity.com and found that indeed there was.  In fact, it is run by an integral practitioner: Dr. Marilyn Hamilton, who has even written a book entitled: Integral City!  I have ordered my own copy and will let you (the readers) know my further impressions, but my initial one was that its perspective is different from my own approach.  As I have said in previous notes, I take more of an engineering approach to things like this, so I tend to think in more concrete terms.  But I realize as an integral wannabe, that other perspectives also have their own partial truths, so I value them also.