06 Sep Permaculturing the Health-Care Industry
(Note: The ideas expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the writer, and do not constitute any sort of "official permaculture stance." Permaculture is a set of ecologically based ethics and principles that can be applied in many ways to sustainably meet our everyday human needs.)
One of the core ethics of permaculture design is "people care."
As a permaculture designer dedicated to the "people care" ethic, I can't help but notice that both sides of the health-care debate ("free market" vs "single payer") actually revolve around the same dysfunctional design feature: a big, fat, middleman that is heavily vested in the pharmaceutical model, the financial markets, and other key elements of the status quo.
The so-called "free market" proposal really isn't a free market at all — it's all about protecting entrenched players.
Nobody in a higher-up position ever suggests the obvious: Why not get the government AND the insurance companies out of the way, and let it be between people and their doctors. And between COMMUNITIES and their doctors. Removal of the toxic middlemen would bring costs down quickly, and bring our sickcare system back to actually being about CARE.
This is a very good focus for permaculture design: Craft a vibrant, community-centered, robust health-care system that really serves people. Serves the provider and the recipient in each individual interaction; and serves society as a whole.
It sickens me to hear both the "single-payer" folks and the "free market corporate insurance" folks use the word health CARE as a synonym for "health INSURANCE providers", this middle layer that multiplies overhead, obscures transparency, and dilutes the fundamentally human quality of the doctor-patient relationship.
We need to take back the phrase "health care". I say that health CARE is when you go to your doctor, community clinic, chiropractor, herbalist, acupuncturist, community yoga and tai chi center, permaculture-savvy nutritionist, etc., and get HEALTHY, and pay a reasonable fee directly to the PERSON who is caring for you.
For indigent, disabled, and elderly folks, we do need a basic safety net. This strikes me as an appropriate arena for some government involvement. Maybe that function could be served on the state and local level as well, as opposed to just being a large central-government thing.
My feeling is that by removing the costly middle layer, health CARE will become more naturally affordable to a wider range of people, including many who now are forced to rely on the dehumanizing and disempowering "System", and the (I suspect) even larger numbers who just plain do without.
Imagine being able to go to our doctors and just pay the fee and both parties actually feel well-served.
In the past, small rural settlements and other communities underserved by medical practitioners have gotten the short end of the deal, but nowadays, the Internet makes the marketplace more transparent to everyone, making it easier to shop around and get reality-checks when seeking health care information and services.
The best way to permaculture our health-care industry is to fundamentally restructure it so it stops being an "industry", and starts really being about people again.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
The world needs a quantum expansion of permaculture thinking in all areas and sectors, from our everyday lives right on up to national and global policy. The permaculture movement needs every brain it can get. To find out more about permaculture and how you can get involved in our local community, please visit Austin Permaculture Guild at www.austinperm.com
Our Permaculture Design Certificate course consistently fills to capacity. To avoid being turned away from this popular class, we suggest you reserve your space in the Winter/Spring 2013 class now – details and online registration here.
Editorial asides: 1) When choosing the subject tag for this post, I finally settled on "Social Justice." But this topic falls very much under the health of our "Local Economy" as well. And a true bottom-up restructuring of our health-care map would surely also have a strong impact on the local food market and on building and development as well. 2) The opinions expressed in this article are strictly the personal opinions of Jenny Nazak, a permaculture designer and educator who serves as admin and publicity hub for Austin Permaculture Guild. The opinions expressed in this article do not reflect any kind of official organizational stance. Austin Permaculture Guild takes no official stances — we are simply an informal organization of citizens, designers, and educators dedicated to learning, practicing, and sharing permaculture design. And the opinions of our community members cover a wide spectrum!
No Comments