Thanks to Kathryn Gunderson for the yummy flag! |
The Supreme Court of the United States has affirmed a new
and hopeful framework. In effect what they have said is that it is appropriate
and constitutional for the United States to have an inclusive health policy.
But….we don’t know what to do about poor people. “What to do about poor people”
was poorly thought throughout the negotiating and passing the Accountable Care
Act by the Democrats in Congress. The vast majority of that negotiation blather
and drama was focused on keeping the insurance and big pharmaceutical industry
from going into full-blown attack. They were paid well for their reluctant
complicity. They looked eager to revert to the other side throughout. The rest
of the time was frittered away trying to get one or two Republicans to cast a
thin veil of bipartisanship over the process. It is not surprising that the
final Act was wobbly in its detail about poor people—they were not the point.
Everyone was thinking about what the rich people could be persuaded to allow,
not what was ideal and effective for the poor.
I wanted—and still want—a simple, inclusive universal
coverage amplified by the strong multi-sector prevention and public health
framework, especially tuned to the fundamental determinants of health that
affect the poor the most. That was never
the point of the negotiation that produced the Affordable Care Act so it is
appropriate that the Supreme Court choked on the parts of the bill that were,
in fact, poorly thought through. If we thought as hard about the poor as we did
about the insurance and pharmaceutical people, we could figure that out.
The historic gift Thursday was that we can focus on
finishing, not restarting, the hard work of extending health to all.
Good Samaritan with Medical Center in the back. |
It was a profound experience to watch the news in the
presence of 18 health systems who were meeting in Loma Linda University Health
Science Center to talk about exactly this bold hope. Loma Linda University is
the thought leader of the Adventist faith-health movement—the belly button of
the global movement. And Adventists tend to live pretty much forever. But two miles away their people
do not; indeed, nearly every possible health indicator is terrible. So they are
crossing the moat (the I-10 freeway, actually) reaching for every possible kind
of partner to achieve a “collective impact.” They are modeling and learning in
real time.
That is pretty much what the other 17 health systems are
trying to learn to do, too. Each is way above the norm in terms of spending
their own money on “community benefit” and care for the poor. But we gathered
out of humility, not pride, for we know that none of us has “succeeded” in
aligning our mercy, justice and science as is so obviously possible. Now that we
know that we will be working in a context of pretty decent health policy, we
can really get to work by answering four questions:
1. What do we
have….to work with. Not just money, although, we are each spending dozens
of millions of dollars providing very expensive care—mostly in our emergency
rooms—to people whose health could be dramatically improved much cheaper by
going to neighborhoods proactively. We have a lot more than money to
work with—the heart and brain of the idea of “religious health assets.” (http://www.arhap.uct.ac.za/).
The most interesting assets are relationships, science, trust, thousands of paid
and unpaid humans and the qualities of trust. This broader view shifts the role
of “management” from carefully titrating “our scarce stuff” to aligning the
superabundance of complex partnerships and assets. This is way more fun and
useful, but a new skill for most of us.
2. What do we know?
We have more data than any platoon of wonks has time to read. But that is just
the beginning, as we have even more intelligence among our partners. Blending
this –hear the word again—superabundance of intelligences
is the challenge. Organizing this knowledge—and teaching partners—depends on
smart compelling questions. Such as….
3. What can we do?
Aaahhhhh, the magic question. The pool of pretty good, if not “best” practice
is deep and wide; accumulating for many years (at least since 1992 when the Interfaith Health Program started at The
Carter Center). We learned at there that
once you figured out how to ask the question, every single imaginable problem
has been addressed with some degree of success by someone somewhere, usually in
places even tougher than your neighborhood. But so much of what is possible
rests on a social infrastructure that blends complex shared effort sustained
over time. The hard part of the question is not finding the “do” but nurturing
the “we.”
4. The question of “we” links the other three, not just the doing part. Understanding assets and
knowledge also depends on the illumination of multiple bright minds. So the
critical question throughout is “how are
we connected.”
We came within one vote of devolving into competing tribes
with radically different human prospects. But the Supreme Court narrowly decided that we
could be one people, albeit with profound and continuing tribal tendencies. Dr.
Fred Smith told us Friday afternoon that even after the decision we were like David
facing Goliath. “You are 18 health systems, 228 hospitals, $43 billion in
revenue, but you are not big enough!!! You must go out in the name of the Lord,
vanquish the giant of disparities, crash the gates of privilege and claim the
land.”
Feel the five smooth
stones; know they are enough and go out. It is our time.