Sickness management "reform?"

I listen to a lot of public radio, and let me tell you I am full up to my eyebrows with this whole health insurance reform thing. Everyone who possibly can has weighed in on what's right and wrong with the bill; every detail and nuance has been discussed ad nauseum. While there are some good things about the bill (obviously I am all for covering more people so that fewer have to lose their homes because they can't pay their medical bills) there is the giant elephant in the room that has not even been mentioned -- for the simple fact that addressing it would mean reduced profits for Big Ag, Big Pharma, the medical-industrial complex, the parasitic health insurance companies, and the processed food industry. Even advocates of a single-payer system (of which I am one) seem to refuse to face the fact that a system that works quite well in many other countries would perhaps not work here, for the simple fact that Americans are quite a lot sicker. At this point I believe we rank around #47 in lifetime expectancy, and quite low in overall happiness (so clearly our excess of advanced "health" care options and consumer goods is not giving us joy or longer lives), and I'm sure if someone out there has studied this they have found that of all the industrialized nations we are definitely the sickest. So the question at the heart of this issue is not actually about how we can get more people to participate regularly in the medical-industrial complex, but rather how can we stop needing so very much disease maintenance?

My answer, as you all know, has to do with better food, and a more localized, involved, sustainable, and traditional approach to eating and living. Time and again, research has proven that the lion's share of our "health" care needs are related to illnesses and conditions that are highly preventable by making different food and lifestyle choices. But the way things are now, with our tax dollars going to support the very industries that are poisoning us, we are not likely to see this type of change coming from the top down any time soon.

This all reminds me of the parasitic relationship of the industrial prison complex to communities: we need more and more criminals to be locked away to support the ravenous beast of the prison system because we need jobs for prison and justice system workers, but in reality it is private companies that are getting rich, and we are paying the cost of prison building and maintenance through our tax dollars (and of course the same arrangement plays out in the business of warfare). In a similar way, through our insatiable need for convenience foods and pills and legal addictive substances and ever more fossil fuels and coal we have concentrated power and control in the companies that have grown fat off of our buying decisions -- and then off of the resulting bad health, obesity, and misery these choices have purchased for us. Big Ag and Big Pharma are truly the most clever, most intertwined twin industries that have ever existed in the United States, with the energy companies, financial industry, medical-industrial complex, and mid-level processors and distributors taking the remaining slices of the pie.

It is disturbingly easy to forget or to ignore the fact that we as taxpayers and consumers are footing the bill for every problem the corporations have allegedly created. We are always going to foot the bill. When we buy cheap food thinking we're brilliant for saving money we are forgetting that our wallets are hemorrhaging many additional dollars each and every time in order to pay for the pollution, environmental degradation, and bad health that we just supported with our buying choices. Not to mention the fact that we will be paying down the road to manage the health conditions that are sure to come even if we are lucky enough to be getting by now. Already it seems at least 1 in 2 families is paying through the nose (either in time or money) for the inexplicable childhood diseases, back-to-back infections, rampant allergies, food intolerances, and behavioral and learning disorders that are commonplace among our children, most of whom have never had an authentic meal of real, nourishing food in their lives. (And while I'm on the topic, don't forget that the school lunch system is a clever way of charging taxpayers for the privilege of letting Big Ag use their children as waste disposals.)

As far as I'm concerned, I want no part of the whole thing. Give me good food and a longer life; I will happily pay more now instead of paying even more down the road. You can keep your "convenience" foods and your addictive beverages and your "preventive" flu shots and your big box stores and your painkillers and your antimicrobials and your garlic flown in from China (really, people -- garlic?!?!?!) and your assurances that I will be able to use as much managed care as I could possibly want. Because I know that I -- or my neighbor, or worse yet, my kids -- will pay for it in myriad ways.

The voice of dissent

I feel compelled to write something out of the usual vein because it has been so much on my mind the last two days. What I'm referring to is the Supreme Court decision that has just bestowed seemingly limitless power on corporations to control the outcomes of political elections, and therefore of legislative decisions.

All the talk on public radio and in the media has gotten me thinking: what, if anything, can we do?

Today I finally realized that all the discussion and declarations about what this ruling means for our country and its citizens is leaving out an important piece: that we ourselves have made these corporations wealthy, and thereby powerful. We have bought the billions of fast food burgers and the zillion cans of Coke and the gas-guzzling vehicles and in so doing have bought bondage in the name of freedom and convenience. WE HAVE DONE IT OURSELVES. This is the bad news, but it is also the good news, because it means that we can un-do it.

Realizing this has led to another enlightening realization about what has been at the heart of everything I do -- everything I write about on this blog, the values I am working to convey to Oliver even at this early stage, the efforts I go to to help people in our community to access good food, the decisions to buy certain things and not to buy others, the great lengths I go to in order to ensure that we are mainly supporting the local farm economy, the ideals I aspire to regarding self-sufficiency -- all this is not because I am a food fanatic, but because I believe in restoring the power of individuals, families, and communities to decide how they will live, and to have that decision be based in the ability to be self-sufficient, independent, dignified, and responsible. The first page of my website states the following: "We believe that total health for people and the environment can be achieved naturally, by gradually but dramatically transforming what we eat and consume, how we think about ourselves and the world, and what we choose to buy. This is an intricate and involved process, with the power to renew our health and our communities, and to sustain the earth." All along I have felt instinctively that these things are deeply connected, but I wasn't sure exactly how. Now I can see that perhaps what we buy and how we buy it, and who we are dependent on for these products, really is part of health and intricately bound up with the effort to eat locally.

It may be too late to change what this ruling means for the next election, or even the elections of the next five or ten years. But we have to start somewhere. The choice is in the hands of each of us. Depending on situation and location, many of us can make the decision to use public transportation, a bike, or carpooling instead of supporting energy corporations. We can choose to buy second-hand, consignment, and at mom-and-pop stores instead of shopping at places like the Gap, Bed Bath & Beyond, and Rite Aid. We can make the decision to mix up a batch of homemade toothpaste and use cloth diapers. The decision to make do with buying fewer goods of higher quality from responsible small companies rather than buying a lot from Wal-mart and Target. The decision to go out of our way to buy local food rather than hopping in line at the grocery store with products that will do nothing but make the food corporations wealthier. The decision to spend a few hours in the kitchen each week rather than rely on the McDonald's drive-thru and the take-out bar at Whole Foods. The decision to find clever ways to reuse and restore everything we can so we can at least put a delay in the cycle of buying and throwing away. The decision to pay attention to our bodies and care for ourselves so we decrease our dependence on expensive medical care. The decision to look reality in the face and stop hiding from the truth about where our food, consumer goods, and services really come from and who they really benefit. The decision to take the time to learn about the alternatives available to us, like fertility awareness, a way of banking locally, or switching to wind power, rather than staying in the same comfortable old routines that relinquish our control to others.

I think in many ways this is about two things: 1) taking some quiet moments to consider what we can do, and 2) learning to give up that brief feeling that finally, we have at last arrived! because of the purchase we just made.

This isn't about being perfect, or about anything close. And it's not about doing all this at once. For me it's about incremental change, within the limits of our family's ability and sanity (which I test constantly). I know that next week, or next month, or next year there will be something else we can do, another way we can decrease our dependence and begin to think more clearly. It happens slowly, but the effects are tremendous, and it starts with just taking a little time for contemplation. We still have the power to say no to the demand that we buy and consume, and for that I am very grateful.