Open Letter on WeCareHealth to Hazel Henderson

Open Letter on WeCareHealth to Hazel Henderson.

Open Letter on WeCareHealth to Hazel Henderson

This is a link to my August 19th, 2009 OpEd on EthicalMarkets.com - Power of Yin Newsletter on the WorkEcology view of transforming health and moving beyond the limitations of Health Care Reform.

Within this OpEd, I described the system of thought now described as an field of expertise called Ecological Economics.

University of Maryland- based Economist Herman Daly has outlined a basis for economic ecology that provides a framework of understanding where markets, open access, intellectual property and public goods co-exist simultaneously.  When there is an imbalance in any one sector in the ecology of any aspect of an economy, the capacity of an economy’s citizens is obstructed or greatly challenged.  This thought leadership was the basis for the establishment of a new professional society, the International Society for Ecological Economics. I am a member of this society.

From my perspective, Daly’s thought leadership provides an open door to my thought leadership on the ecology of health.  The cost of resources to sustain health vastly exceed in times of illness the capacity of what any one person can generate. This is particularly the situation for any person or family living with chronic illness. The market place no longer provides a 100% guarantee that any one person can afford the cost of market-based resources of health.

The ecology of health economics is further challenged by the conflicting and confusing format and methods of which a person has to gather education on health in this country. This is further confused in the Open Access Domain with a belief that freely accessible information and programs is sufficient to sustain the knowledge and education on healthy practices.  It is often not clear how valid the information is at the time it is obtained.  Translating conflicting sources of information from credentialed resources often builds more confusion rather than providing an education and knowledge from which people can see the choices they have and work with the right expert to sort through that knowledge in the present moment without doing harm by exercising precaution.