The Heart of Healthcare

The heart of healthcare is at risk, yet Constitution Day still reminds us why governments exist.

Why bother with health policy?

Tracking the lobbies, agencies, bills, industry trends all comes down to one thing.

The heart of healthcare needs our protection.

The Heart of Healthcare

They come, and we meet them there.

Hands examining, eyes searching.
Questioning, listening, testing, thinking, collaborating.
Fiercely, tenderly, devoting everything to winkling out the problem.
Addressing it with skill and truth and humor.
Revisiting it, until relief is found.

In privacy.
In dedication to this patient.
To the exclusion of other interests.
Our best to our neighbor.
Even – an expression of highest service to God, our Creator and Judge.

This is the heart of healthcare.

by Abigail Nobel

By and large, health policy neglects and abuses the heart of healthcare.

Health policy is made up of laws, executive orders, and regulations. Most are made without considering the heart of healthcare.

Privacy, time, dedication, skill, truth, humor, a higher calling: legions of laws run roughshod over such personal considerations.

To many policymakers, these are barriers to population health. Their worldview is centrist, top-down, bureaucratic. It directly opposes our founding documents’ principles of individual rights.

Often, it takes more than one source to connect the dots. Health policy is above all, complicated. (A century of accumulated red tape will do that.)

We attempt to help MHF Forum readers with informative introductions and comments. Our new intern is off to a great start with that!