What Makes a Healthy Society?
The Great Simplification #70 with Dr. John Kitzhaber
This Week…
On the heels of last week’s podcast with Dr. Robert Lustig on how the foods we eat can affect our health, this week’s episode takes a zoomed-out lens to the United States healthcare industry. To discuss this with me, I am joined by my friend, former Governor of Oregon and ER Doctor John Kitzhaber. Dr. Kitzhaber’s hands-on experience working in medicine and systemic perspective as a policymaker gives him a unique perspective on healthcare resource allocation, the effectiveness of medicine, and the real world effects of how we incentivize medical care. With health outcomes below average compared to other developed nations and healthcare spending at nearly 20% of GDP, creating medical systems that are less costly while also keeping people healthier is critical to the well-being of the country and its citizens.
John Kitzhaber has more than 40 years of experience in health care and health policy in both public and private sectors. He practiced as an emergency room physician for 15 years; served 14 years in the Oregon Legislature, and served three terms as Governor of the State of Oregon. Kitzhaber is the author of the groundbreaking Oregon Health Plan, through which hundreds of thousands of low- and moderate-income Oregon families gain access to health care. During his third term as Governor, Kitzhaber was the chief architect of Oregon’s Coordinated Care Organizations, the first effort in the country created on a statewide basis to meet the Triple Aim—better health, better quality, lower cost—with a focus on community and population health.
Can we extend our time horizons by making long-term investments in the most effective preventative care? How do we take care of more people with fewer resources available? Most of all, can we come together to think critically about how we can create a system that prioritizes holistic health, based in community and accessible to everyone?
In case you missed it…
Last Friday I post my annual Earth Day Presentation. This year, I was inspired by conversation with Marcus Briggs-Cloud of the Muskogee Tribe, who was explaining to me how English words fail to represent the values and terms in his native language. That got me to thinking about the semantic power that resides in the everyday words we use - the words themselves imbue an understanding and perspective that shape our behaviors - and almost give them tacit approval. As such, for this year’s Earth Day presentation, I present 30+ common (English) terms that we use to describe our surroundings, and pair them with their ‘systems reality’ equivalents.
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