HEALTH CARE

Canadians need look no further for their defining characteristic than the continuing debate over health care. Will it ever end? The signs are not encouraging that we will soon be defined as a segment of humanity that has joined the sides of the debate.

To join the sides we need to start at the beginning, where no one wants to go. No one wants to talk about the purpose of life before getting into the purpose of health care. If we agreed on our common purpose there would be no debate. We would simply do what is necessary to accomplish our purpose.

At the present time we have the same dominant purpose. It is the materialistic reaction to the void.(see poem) However, trying to fill the void with money and the things it buys puts us all in conflict. We're after as much as we can get because there is not enough to fill the void. With this purpose pervading our existence we will never have health care. We have treatment that is a cost of living but not health care as a condition of life.

Having the common purpose doesn't simply dump money into the delivery of health care. The common purpose gives each of us responsibility for our own health care. Self-care will remove most of the need. For what we can't look after ourselves we reach out to others who freely give knowing we are only as healthy as the least healthy. What others can't deliver we leave to God. There is no debate.