Saturday, January 8, 2011

Health & Healing

It seems like years ago that I was laying in a hammock talking to a young woman from Canada on Guatemala´s Pacific coast about health care.

The conversation brought to mind an idea I once came up with, that if a group of people wants to organize themselves into a cohesive body, inherent in that organization is that all members look out for one another´s well being. Few hunter-gathererers would stay with a band of people who didn´t share their food or look out for each others safety and health. There would be no point.

Somehow this quality of looking out for one another, intrinsic to human existence, has come to be called `socialism`, or sometimes `communism`, and is treated like the plague in the more ignorant parts of the world (coughcoughunitedstates).

Leaving aside the idea that we are one human family for a moment, its completely understandable that someone living in Texas or Miami wouldn`t give a rat`s ass about the health and well-being of poor liberal children in California.

However, if you don`t see yourself as responsible for someone`s else well-being, neither are they obligated to make or follow social agreements with you.

You can`t have it both ways, simultaneously telling people that you are all one nation, under God, and must abide by the same codes of living (called laws), and that everyone is accountable to the so-called justice system, and then treat people like they aren`t part of your tribe by denying them food, health care, or other assistance while you have more than enough. Its hypocritical.

However I got really jaded about this whole concept as I started thinking about the toxicity of so-called healthcare in the States. People drugged up on pharmaceuticals they don`t even need, women being told they can`t have their babies at home, kids misdiagnosed with learning disabilities because they`re being driven crazy from being stuck in a dreary classroom all day when they should be out climbing trees. Who wants this kind of universal healthcare? Not I.

So, the solution is to totally re-vamp all aspects of our healthcare system, making it holistic and truly accessible. Simple, right?

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