Manifesting the Destiny of Our Health Through A System of Multiplicities

(Edited)

After discussing his personal stake in his authorship of his book, The Healing of America, T.R. Reid cuts right to the chase to discuss his three main assertions on global health care on which his book is founded:

1. There are four main global models with which to view health care -- Bismarck, Beveridge, National Health Insurance, and Out-Of-Pocket -- with the United States being a blend of all models;

2. These models are most easily understood through an analysis of coverage, cost, quality, and choice that individuals have (or do not have) under these systems;

3. There will never be a perfect model, just better, more efficient models as time passes and change makes its waves

Reid's last assertion led me to title this post what I have, as he, more than any other author or work we have read over the duration of the course, writes from a different voice: his patriotism bleeds into his work. He obviously wants to see America become the best nation it can be, and insodoing, he does not seek to attack one cultural and economic model of health care at the detriment of an other, nor does he make an attempt to belittle some countries for sub-par functioning models while praising others. Reid's approach to analyzing global health care is deeply founded in finding flaws in the American healthcare system and finding ways in which those flaws are fixed (or non-existent) in other systems; once completed, we can then work to change the premise of the American system. Reid wants to manifest his American destiny of healing his nation's ails through the slow, careful observation of the successes of other countries, and for that, I applaud him.

That said, I cannot stand behind him completely; Reid's voice, though loud and passionate, is silent on pointing out the one fundamental idealistic flaw in American healthcare that CAN, RIGHT NOW be addressed: our healthcare companies, both poblic and private, are simply profit-machines thriving off keeping the American populace as sick as possible so as to milk us for all we are worth. This silence may prove do be deafening.

The new voice spoken by Reid, a voice of compassion blended with meticulous fact-checking, a voice of an American man without any chips on his shoulder (I couldn't resist), a voice that seeks reason rather than immediate reform, is refreshing, to say the least. He really seems to want to understand all aspects of the national and global issue of health and healthcare before he proposes any action, unlike Janet McKee, who previously articled a work that immediately blamed western capitalism and biomedicine as the downfall of good health west of the Prime Meridian and opined that holistic health practices and naturopathic measures will be the Messiah of modern medicine. I use McKee as a simple example of the extreme authors on whom we have been turning pages week after week.

With all of the above said and well-meaned, I do not mean to come across as a full-fledged supporter of Reid's "hands off" policy. While McKee was staunch in her assertions ad nauseaum, Reid hardly offered one main posit as to why the United States' healthcare system is failing. He only briefly mentioned the idea, which is most poignant to me, that both public and private American healthcare companies are in a business to keep us as sick as possible for as long as possible. Though he did discuss the fact that Americans pay the most money in the world for a system that lacks full coverage, he does not develop why Americans receive some of the most "mediocre" quality care in the industrialized world. I argue that the spirit of Capitalism and a laissez-faire government are to blame.

Let's face it: healthcare corporations are in the business for the business, and though this is my argument, I am not the only one to make it. Healthcare companies enjoy when hospital beds are full, when doctors are booked with appointments from nine to five, when one half of Americans are prescribed at least one daily medication -- it all generates capital. Our system values the money paid into it more than the lived experience of those it claims to help. I argue the American system that rather shed a tear at the closure of a private hospital since it represents a loss of capital than break into a smile that that hospital is no longer needed is a system that treats bodies as business.

Rebecca Onie, the founder of Health Leads, a program that connects patients to basic care and resources, shares my worries that Reid "... just sit[s] here, waiting."

... That if we are honest... that we all harbor one fiercely held aspiration for our healthcare: that it keep us healthy. This aspiration... is an enormously powerful one... what if we decided to take all the parts of healthcare that have drifted away from us and stand firm and say, 'No. These things are ours. They will be used for our purposes. They will be used to realize our aspiration'? What if everything we needed to realize our aspiration for healthcare was right there in front of us just waiting to be claimed?

Reid might shy away from attempting to implement change too soon for good reason: he's just observing and analyzing for future change via ethnographies, case studies of different countries, what-have-you. But a true patriot? A true person who loves their country? When was the last time a self-described patriot sat on the sidelines indefinitely? Granted, history has never been changed by the actions of moderates, but maybe those who do not seek to throw their opinions out into the world like a fishing hook out into the ocean catch the biggest fish. Reid was obviously in full fisherman's garb while traveling the world, hospital to hospital, city to city, to understand the approaches to health care around the world without hurling one or two "cure-alls" from other nations to the States.

I bow to Reid for his conviction to finding truth and fighting dishonesty. I contend with him that the issues he addresses are not pertinent at this very moment. Maybe my contention is because I'm an angsty soon-to-be college graduate with a now!-now!-now! view on social change, or maybe it's because I can't stand to see people turned into cogs in a profit machine. Whatever the case, I thank Reid for starting the conversation on global healthcare and its surpassing of the American system and for giving us a platform from which to direct our own actions, or a destiny to manifest: to change this country's healthcare system for the better, far away from profit-mongering. And to do this, we need to be asking BOTH what our country's healthcare system can do for us AND what we can do for our country's healthcare system. From one patriot to another, thank you.