Escapable Logic

There's been a lot of appropriate passion and support for Terry Heaton's current challenge. (Here's Doc, Jarvis, Gillmor, Weinberger). Terry was recently diagnosed with a breast lump that alone would be threatening enough, but the accompanying insult is that Terry, like so many entrepreneurs, is currently between health insurance policies. This prompted Terry to disclose his surprising discovery - almost everyone in the health care profession was an ally in his quest for health and sanity:

I've also discovered that most doctors and health care providers really do care about people. When you get into that insurance mill thing, the human aspects sometimes to get pushed to the side, because it's all about money. When you walk into a place and announce that you're "self-pay," it's amazing what can happen. . .

All of this gives me pause. As a student of human nature and a professional observer of life, it's easy to get jaded in this day and age. As Pogo said, "I have seen the enemy, and he is us." But there is something at core in people that -- if given a chance -- is begging to come out and make itself known.

We are not a culture of automatons, driven only by logic and reason. We have an emotional side that's every bit as important, and this is why secular Modernism is failing. We are spiritual beings on a human journey. That, and our unrelenting curiosity, is what gives me hope for the future.

Healing in the Kleptocracy

I met Tamara Bavendam, MD a dozen years ago when I did some consulting to the University of Washington Medical Center. That's where I also learned that most doctors are as victimized by the Medical-Industrial Complex as their patients. Tamara feels more passionately about healing patients than you can imagine, but that's not the only reason we got married 3 years ago. We share the view that physicians are geeks who specialized so early and dutifully that they really don't understand how the world works, though they're obligated to act like they do because patients rely on their seeming infallibility and all-knowing affect. It's a toxic combination, but unavoidable. It means that you don't push back in the areas you don't understand, for Doctors cannot afford to seem clueless.

When the lawyers and accountants and MBAs got around to hijacking the medical-industrial complex, they multiplied the hoops that healing professionals jumped through until they became heeling professionals - compliant lapdogs doing whatever the reimbursement industry required.

I was going to suggest to Terry that he put up a tip jar so his friends in the blogosphere could help insure him. (I’ll still suggest that.)

But the better gift to him and Rob and so many others would be the creation of a group insurance plan for bloggers. Perhaps that could be one of the fringes of creating a blog trade association. Anyone who know about such things have suggestions?

: In the meantime, Godspeed Terry. And Rob.

: UPDATE: Terry now has a tipjar up on his blog. Mutual of Blogosphere is open.

So I commented on the medical mess on Terry's site, and suggested his story might be part of the solution. His followup post was Facing surgery with friends:

Jeff Jarvis urged me to put a tip jar on my site, and what followed was truly astonishing to me. Like the closing scenes of It's a Wonderful Life, friends I both knew and didn't know came to my rescue, and my understanding of love reached a new level. While I don't have all the money yet, I'm we're close. Four days ago, I was in an untenable situation; today, I'm free. This is the miracle of love.

I've always found it easier to give than receive, so this is quite overwhelming to me. How does one repay such a gift? I think the reality is that you don't; you just repeat the kindness when you can.

One of the commenters to that original post, Britt Blaser, wrote:

How do all of us use this spontaneous outpouring of love and support to create an overwhelming mesh of interlocking pledges to reinforce each other in trials like these?Our health care system has been hijacked by lawyers and accountants while the Doctors were overwhelmed with their urge to be helpful (I'm married to an M.D.).

Please, Terry, get well quick. Then lead us out of this wilderness. No pressure though..... ;-)

This is an interesting challenge, and one to which I shall give considerable thought.

In addition to imagining an inspiration to address the health care mess that Tamara and I and all our professional friends agonize over, I also hoped that a followup role as a guiding light might inspire and invigorate Terry or whatever is next. I also believe he would agree with me that, at the moment the biopsy needle pierced his flesh, the issue was not settled. In a curious way, the spiritual being inhabiting Terry Heaton's flesh still had some choice in the character of that lump.

Imagining Choices

The web framework my little company has been developing (and developing and developing...) is based on actions, not words. Naturally, many actions are indeed words (heh. "in deed". no pun intended). Actions include the form of words that you enter after you click Terry Heaton's donation link or the campaigning you do or the votes you cast. Those are choices that any of us is free to make, but not enough of us do. Yet.

The world I imagine, the one I am willing into existence for Terry and for my grandchildren, looks something like this:

At that last link, you'll find these words, so conservative in their nature that a modern conservative might not agree:

Philadelphians were keenly aware that the growing city's economic well-being rested in the well-being of its citizenry. Allowing buildings to burn, perhaps spreading into larger fires, made no sense. Philadelphia understood even then the interconnectivity of its infrastructure and its economic health. When one citizen suffered, all suffered.

When (not if) the People who Act on our Pledges grows into a robust movement, the need for health insurance disappears, because we'll just pony up the costs of paying, in real time, the health care providers who provably treat those of us who provably need help. The money won't even have to pass through Terry's account.

Think about it. I don't know Terry Heaton, but I resonate with the authentic voice I "hear" from my computer display. Those pixels caused me, like so many others, to click my mouse button twice and type some numbers into a PayPal field, depositing something useful in Terry's Healing Fund.

It's a scalable model for the future. The rest is mechanics. We're working on that.

The Terry Heaton Challenge Opportunity

Healing in the Kleptocracy

Imagining Choices