Letter to the Healthcare Team

I wrote a tiny letter to President Obama's Healthcare Team today.
You should try it.
Writing a letter, I mean.
I used to write letters to my senators and representatives all the time and then realized they weren't really listening at all, just sending automatically generated "We Care About You!" form letters that only got more and more depressing.
And, y'know, this may still be the case with the new administration.
Howevah.
I watched some videos from the Environmental Team the other day, and the speaker actually read several people's letters and commented on them.
It was amazing!
I mean, maybe this whole democracy dream might actually be able to solidify a little bit within the rotting corpse of our stinky old U.S. plutocracy.
How cool would that be?!
So, yeah:
Write em a letter.
Tell em how you really feel and why.
There might actually be somebody listening.

_______________________________
Healthcare Team's Query:
"What worries you most about the healthcare system in our country?"

RumDoxy's Reply:
My concerns about the U.S. healthcare system are rooted deeply within my much larger concerns about the U.S.' food systems. For those of us who cannot afford any medical care whatsoever (not even the "affordable" $44 per month, per couple plan my employer generously offers), medical attention for our illnesses is nowhere near as important as preventing those illnesses from occurring in the first place. Many people have commented on our current medical ideology needing to refocus on treating the whole individual, as opposed to treating (and creating and treating) symptoms. I wholeheartedly agree with this holistic view and, at the same time, do not believe it digs deeply enough around the colossal taproot of our overwhelming crises.

We absolutely must adamantly disallow myriad Big Business' tyrannical dictation of our options when it comes to caring for ourselves and our families. In the interests of Big Business, consumer-oriented labeling was deregulated in the 1970s to begin allowing imitation foods to be advertised as equivalent to the "real thing," which they certainly are not. It is Big Business that promotes (by)products as nutritious and healthy (like false fats and false sugars), (by)products that are now recognized as being actively toxic to human health. It was/is/has been Big Business that has promoted the ludicrous excesses of meat and dairy consumption that are now destroying not only our health (increasing risks of heart disease, cancer, stroke, and etc.), but are destroying our environment, our very planet, at an alarming rate.

Powerful people in business suits, in offices, in any environment not directly connected to the living environment they claim to serve, have absolutely no pragmatic ground on which to stand when they claim to be able to determine what is best for us. Not where our health is concerned.

I would suggest incorporating farmers - not agribusiness giants, you understand, but Real Farmers - into the fold of our healthcare brain trust. Farmers know, better than anyone, that what is good for the planet is also good for us. They understand the connections between the health of the soil, of the grass and fruit and vegetables that grow in it, of the animals that feed on and fertilize the plants, of the humans that, ideally, function as caretakers of our cyclic planet. Leaving out the people who daily struggle to lay the very foundation of our food chain, putting the creators and keepers of our preventative medicine out of the healthcare loop would be, inarguably, a terribly grave mistake.

I also suggest the new Healthcare Team give some serious thought to consulting with Michael Pollan on the U.S. food system. He has done more research, has put his findings more accessibly, than perhaps any other academic author. He is a valuable resource, and should not be taken for granted.

Thank you for allowing us this space to speak directly to/with you.
I hope you are truly listening.
It means everything.
Everything.