"A Return to Healing" Blog: Tue, 08/25/2009 - 09:30 — admin
Most of us know that recently departed Senator Ted Kennedy fought all his life for access to health care as a right for all Americans. He remained true to his almost religious passion for this cause even in his last year of life, as shown by the powerful speech in the link below. Inspired by his heroic work, liberal Democrats and progressives are vowing to fight harder than ever for single-payer health insurance—or, as a last resort, for the public insurance option now favored by most Democrats (including Kennedy, at the end) in their compromise with inside-the-beltway realities. Outside of Washington, meanwhile, among the most intriguing activists for universal care are our friends, the MAD AS HELL DOCTORS, a group of Oregon physicians. This weekend they set out on a road tour of twenty-six cities in a “care-a-van,” and plan to arrive with a convoy of activists in DC on September 30. This creative effort for health justice is emblematic of the urgency of the mission, for the month of September is do-or-die time for single-payer advocates: Per the promise of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, the house will debate and vote on a single-payer plan sometime in September. Also crucial in this effort is the work of 17,000 doctors who are members of Physicians for National Health Plan .
But as we have pointed out, “Medicare for All”—one of the favored phrases of Senator Kennedy—is a necessity for genuine health reform, but is not nearly sufficient. We also need genuine paradigm reform. National insurance alone cannot fix our misguided health care system; what we also need is a powerful vision for overcoming the corporate domination of our health-care system altogether, combined with a thorough understanding of the future of medicine. American needs a program for replacing the business values that now dominate health care with the values of true healing and genuine service. So, how exactly do we overcome “disease-care” medicine and the parasitical corporations that feed off of an increasingly sick population? The approach identified in A Return To Healing combines a national commitment to single-payer insurance, a vast expansion of preventive practices and wellness education, and above all, a paradigm switch to integrative medicine.
Ted Kennedy: Health Care “Has Been the Passion of My Life”
