"News that's not known, or not known enough."
Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion.
|
"News that's not known, or not known enough." Helen & Harry Highwater's cranky weblog of news and opinion. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The solution is in the people's hands
Real, workable solutions will have to grow out of very local initiatives. The first move would be to get groups of motivated citizens to start talking. There are countless ways to get this started and nearly as many ways that such an initiative can dwindle and fail. Who to talk to is a question best answered by someone who knows the area, normally long time residents (I am new to my area and therefore impaired) with a wide network of friends and professional friends and acquaintances. There may be doctors that would be interested in talking about local initiatives as part of a small exploratory group. If so, including them will be essential, but the discussions need not include any professionals to start with. After all we all have a stake in improving health care. It would be nice if some influential people could be involved, bank officers, nurses union representatives, elected officials. But inclusion of people in such roles can also be hazardous since status quo concepts can constrict discussion. The best chance is probably if neighborhood groups come to the conclusion that they actually can exert influence. A core element of our predicament lies in learned helplessness of local communities. A neighborhood group could, for instance, try to establish a neighborhood clinic that works on a cash only basis. Such a group could elicit support from the large number of uninsured and underinsured who would sign up as potential patrons of such a clinic. Just a few thousand folks willing to state their intent to patronize such a non-profit, cash only clinic, and willing to contribute a small membership fee to get things moving, could end up providing for their own medical care in a remarkably short time. The number of such possible outcomes is dependent on peoples creativity and energy. A can do attitude is essential. Ideas are not the problem. Being willing to organize energetically for self sufficiency is the problem.
Because we respect peoples' privacy, we do not keep records of friends' and contributors' contact information. This means we can't forward private communications between readers and writers, but we always welcome dialogue for publication. When we publish incoming emails, we usually edit out the sender's last name, email address, or anything else that would tend to uniquely identify the author (if we slip up, please let us know). But if your email is unambiguously intended only to annoy, insult, or threaten us, we'll publish all the details, and leave it on-line forever. We're especially interested in hearing and considering different perspectives. All we ask is that you conduct yourself sanely and civilly. For the most productive dialogue, it helps if you'll cite a specific article or concept we've gotten wrong. You can contact Helen & Harry at <newsuneed at yahoo.com>. If that address ever fails, our back-up email address is <unknownnews at inbox.com>. But please, don't email us unless you're really and truly, honestly, actually trying to send the publishers of News a communication you're not sending to anyone or everyone else. Please don't send attachments or other cr*p we don't want. If you're trying to reach us but getting no reply, it's probably because you've sent us cr*p we don't want, so we're filtering your emails into the trash, unopened and unread. If you'd like to have your email address unblocked, simply send a sincere apology (from an un-blocked email address).
|
|
