birds

that the birds of worry and care
fly above your head
this you cannot help
but that they build nests in your hair
this you can prevent

photo originally uploaded by ehoyer

New Sky

We have a new website to go along with this weblog!

Our deep appreciation to my friend Jana Mochkatel and her team at Net-Time, who designed and developed our logo and site.

Our great appreciation, too, to Fred First of Fragments from Floyd, who so generously gave us permission to use his gorgeous photo, Transparent Green of Spring (above, and see it enlarged here, and in context, here)

We began our medical and health care practice a little over 6 years ago, as a not-for-profit called One Sky Medicine (which we now call "Old Sky"). In our idealism and naivete we made numerous excessively expensive business choices that compounded over time, and by the end of 2004 we decided to acknowledge all the good intentions, hard work, tremendous struggle and tremendous contributions by so many (hundreds of) people (staff, administrators, board members, colleagues, our wonderful patients and community supporters) and to ask the board to cut our losses and go out of business.

A seed group of practitioners, our bonds forged in that kind of heat that comes from hours and months and years of working together, playing and eating (a lot) together, living through difficulty, and becoming like family to one another, decided after long discussions that we would stay in business together. Our form now is of independent practices joined in partnership, our overhead is much less than half of what it was, we are steadily paying back the debts, and most of our patients came along with us when we moved. We're grateful to all that has sustained us and brought us this far. It feels as if our transplanted roots have had a chance over the past 18 months to settle in and grow, and so now we have more energy to reach from the inside out and extend our tender stems and leaves into the wider world.

cross-posted to life cultivating life

Health Care for All

A brief excerpt from the Fall 2006 issue of YES! magazine, a large portion of which is devoted to the theme of "American Health Care. A System to Die For?":

(selections from) Principles of Real Solutions
--by Sarah van Gelder, Executive Editor

Cover everyone.

• Health care is a public good. Like fire or police protection, universal coverage benefits each one of us and society as a whole. Unlike consumer choices, we don't know when we--or a loved one--may need expensive treatment.

De-link coverage from jobs.

• Employer-based insurance hurts entrepreneurs and independent workers, the self-employed, the unemployed, part-time workers, free-lancers, artists, and the working poor.

Control costs by cutting bureaucracy.

• Enormous savings are available simply by freeing doctors from the burdensome paperwork required by insurance companies. Negotiated fee structures and a single payer--or a few regulated payers--would save enough to cover the uninsured, studies show (see page 22 of the magazine)

Invest in prevention.

• We should suppport healthy habits through treatment of substance-abuse, smoking and domestic violence. Open space, bike trails, and community gardens improve health, too, and we should reduce the toxins that contaminate our food, water, air and soils.

Reduce poverty and inequality.

• Poverty, powerlessness, and inequality damage the health of the entire society, and each one of us, rich and poor (see page 29 of the magazine, and here). A huge health dividend would result simply by reducing excessive CEO salaries and profits, and raising up those at the bottom of the income scale. We could start with the health care sector.

If you are interested in YES! magazine--which is ad-free, and printed on 100% post-consumer waste recycled paper, and always full to the brim with thoughtful articles and useful information--you can get a free copy, and if you are a schoolteacher you can get a free one-year subscription.