What do we need in a national healthcare plan?

Dear friends and colleagues around the nation and around the world,

We are about to embark on a journey towards the creation of a universal access to healthcare plan. It will not be perfect right out the gate but it will be a work-in-progress.

Hopefully the US Plan will be built on the premise that there it a basic human right to pursue one's highst level of attainable wellness in all five realms of health; bio-psycho-social-spiritual and economic health; and that health achievement is a responsibility as well as a right.

President Obama said the other night that our teens don't have the right to drop out of highschool because they are cheating the nation as well as themselves. I contend that the same thing is true of health. We each have an obligation to keep away from harmful and deletarious things (why do girl scout's sell cookies during Lent?) and to keep ourselves moving in healthy directions. When I eat the box of thin mints (I didn't, really!) I hurt not only my figure but the health of my nation. I have the responsibility to stay healthy as a mother, a Professor, a partner, and a citizen.

I believe we also have the obligation to protect our health and our neighbors pocketbooks by living insured. If my children's father, and my late husband, had not responsibly protected our family by buying life insurance in sufficient quantity we would have not been secure and they may not have finished college. If we live without health insurance because that's the only way we can own a car, or a house, or go on vacation then we are living above our means. Uninsured people go to the hospital; in fact they go more frequently than insured folks and they are sicker when they go. What happens then is that they recieve care and everyone else has to pay for it.

We need 100% of our population to pay something for healthcare; putting some "skin in the game" makes us work harder to stay healthy. Even if it's 1% of the earnings of a minimum wage worker or a few dollars a month paid by a non working student it must be a paid item. I don't Coach for free because noone values free. if our senior citizens can pay for Medicare out of SS why can't every 26 year old pay for health insurance?

So....what do you want to see included in a US National Health Care Plan?

My list starts out with universal access to affordable health coaching and I hope for the day when every American has a primary Certified Health Coach. Then physical fitness programs, open access to care for moms by Certified Nurse Midwives or Certified Professional Midwives and homebirths or birthcenter births as the normal, the expected and the standard for low risk moms.

And finally, on my list is support for people with serious health-issues so they can become entrepreneurs, leading solid companies and hiring others with health challenges. For this I am serving as a Coach and Developer for a new non-profit.
Check it out at www.corporatehearts.org and please refer people who meet the criteria for this program to the site.

Your list? Blogg on my good people, blogg on! Then send this link to 10 of your closest people and ask them to do the same.

Happy writing and reading,

Walli