Jan. 25, 2011 : HealthCare Reform

On Tuesday, Jan. 25, ten people braved the rain and joined us at our JDN discussion event. We started the evening by taking a survey of the Health Insurance and Accident Insurance concepts in the western world, and looked briefly at the main features of some of our comparable societes : Japan, Canada, Autralia, Sweden, France and England.

Our discussion started with the question of : ‘Is Healthcare ( Access to Healthcare) a RIGHT or a Privilage ?”. After a short discussion, we all agreed that in the Twenty First Century, access to Healthcare is a “Right”. We then spent some of our time touching on various features of the current system :

- Lack of Universal Electornic Medical Records ( records that can easily be conveyed to the correct party and accessed when needed )

- Lack of accountability for misuse of Medical records

- Large overhead of our private insurance model with various private enterprises spending large sums of money on ‘administration’ and redundnant ‘system developments’

- The cost to Doctors to recoup their bills ( the need to hire bill-collection staff )

- The high cost of ‘defensive medicine’ practiced because of the fear of frivolous lawsuits

- The unncessary and wasteful end-of-life expenses : often, patients are kept alive for a few months at extreme costs for reasons other than the patient’s desire or well-being. It was noted that some old patients are kept alive so that their family can continue to collect their Social Security checks. Some are kept alive by children or relatives who have not cared for them in a long time and view the prolongation of the life of their loved one as a means to demonstrate to themselves and perhaps to others that they do in fact “love” their patient. It is often a sense of guilt and self-interest that drives them to demand that all be done to prolong the life of the patient, regardless of the cost to the patient or to society.

- The use of Emergency Room facilities by the homeless and indogent who use it for a "shower and a hot meal". They are often repeat consumers of ER services at great cost to hospitals.

- The Fear of Death : many claim to believe in Heaven and view it with fondness, but “Death” is considered a failure on the part of the Physician and perhaps even the Patient.

As we ponder the question of “Healthcare” as a “Rigbht”, we may well pause to consider “What does that mean ?”. For example, we all have the “Right” to buy a Car, to buy a House, or to buy a Gun. But is either of them Free ? Do we have the ‘Right’ to demand that we all be given a Rolls-Royce , just for the asking ? Of course not !. Although we have the ‘Right’ to have a Car, the responsibility to PAY for it rests with ourselves, which ultimately becomes a question of “Priorities within our Means”.

So the next questions to ponder may be :

1) Now that Access to Healthcare is a RIGHT, Who should pay for what portion of it ?. As in the exmaple of Car-Ownership, should our financial resources, along with our priorities in life, determine the level and quality of HealthCare we receive ?

2) What is the role of Government, Society and Individual in the Delivery and Consumption of Healthcare Services ?

Perhaps these questions will be our discussion-subjects in some of our future events..

October 26, 2010 : Where are You From ?

During our Tuesday, Oct. 26 event, we explored the questions of "Where are you From?" and of "our Ancestry". Dr. Spencer Wells ( and others ), who have just recently been able to better explore the human Genetic blueprint due to advances in DNA Sequencing technology, have set forth convincing arguments and evidences that all people currently living outside Africa, or at least the majority of them,  are desendants of ONE major tribe of related individuals who left Africa some 60000 ( or 70000 ) years ago in a very successful migration east-ward. They were able to successfully establish themselves in the middle-east, with some members pushing off along the Indian Ocean until they reached Australia.

The science has not yet been disproven. In fact, since the initial public announcement in 2002, even more evidence has been unearthed to support the thesis.

The news that we are descendats of Africans is unsettling to many people who either have narratives of being the "First People", or being "Born/Created" from the land they now occupy ( such as some Navajo tribes, or the Native Australian Bushman ), or have ingrained views about their "racial Purity/status", specially those who may consider themves to be "white".

But science has shown, until otherwise proven, that we are truly all related. Therefore, if the "one drop rule" is to be truly applied today, all people who live outside of Africa are to be re-classified as AFRICAN !

Of course, we realize that although the Genetic research has proven that we are all related to one Genetic Family, it is clear that we all have different "Cultures". Therefore, we can either discard the term "RACE" as an obsolete concept, or re-define it to simply mean "different Cultures". In that context, we can state that people living in Southern States of America are a differenr "RACE" than those who line in the North Eastern states ! That would confuse many who are still holding onto obsolete concepts of RACE as a means to classify people based on Skin Color, or Facial Features.

Therefore, to reduce confusion, it may be wiser to simply discard RACE as a useful Classification Tool, and recognize that we are a very Diverse Human Family, with different Cultural and Facial Features, but with the same Genes uner our skin.

Where do we go from here ? Does that automatically mean that I now like all my fellow Human Beings ?  Perhaps not !. Perhaps it may not change our hearts and attitides overnight, but it does mean that as I consider my relationship with my fellow Human Family Members, I can no longer use "Racial Differences" as an excuse for false beliefs of Supremecy. Just as in most large extended families, we may have a few "cousins" whom we may not like, but we know that they are,  nevertheless , "blood relatives" !