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Dear brothers and sisters,

I opened my newspaper to see that there is a proposal in Congress to require nearly all Americans to have health insurance. This is not easy to understand because in the presidential campaign it was argued that it would put too much of a burden on low-income families. This has evidently been forgotten and we are told that mandatory health insurance is just around the corner.

Now in Massachusetts every citizen is required to have health insurance. This program has been in existence for three years. We read that, although advocates of the Massachusetts plan claimed that it would lower health costs and achieve universal coverage, it has done neither. Instead, the plan has increased cost for individuals and the state, reduced revenues for doctors and hospitals, and left Massachusetts officials in the awkward position of having to admit that their "universal coverage is not likely to be universal anytime soon.” I think we can pronounce it a fiasco. Aren’t people overburdened enough? Is it reasonable and fair to impose this-especially in these times?

Now at Living Tree Community we’ve often thought about what a program truly concerned with the health and well-being of Americans would look like. Seems to us that it would have the following lineaments:

1. In our opinion, most Americans, deep down, have a heartfelt need to create to contribute in a constructive way to the well-being and prosperity of their fellow Americans. We see this as a need every bit as real as the need to satisfy hunger or thirst. We see it exemplified in our team workers and interns. If it’s thwarted or blocked it leads to the sort of frustration that Thoreau described when he said “Most men lead lives of "quiet desperation" and go to the grave with the song still in them”. We speculate that this quiet desperation is a cause of chronic illness. This is bad enough when jobs are relatively plentiful but in these times it’s all the more tragic. According to an article in the New York Times,a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health came to the conclusion that workers who lost a job through no fault of their own, were twice as likely to report developing a new ailment like high blood pressure, diabetes or heart disease over the next year and a half compared to people who were continuously employed. Think of this as the deep ecology of illness, if you will. People need so much to contribute to the well-being of their fellow Americans and they are faced with so many hoops and hurdles. We propose that every American has the inalienable right to a soul-satisfying vocation and thatit be reasonably and fairly compensated.
   We propose that the fear and terror of losing one’s job and with that one’s livelihood, health and well-being shall be relegated to a museum along with the bronze ax and chariot.
   
2. Every American shall have the opportunity to heal this American earth. Be it in a backyard or community garden. Everyone shall have the blessing of being able to grow their own food. What could be more healing than contact with this American earth and discovering, at the same time, that the parsley, kale, lettuce and celery that you grow yourself are the true miracle foods, magic foods and super foods.
   
3. We propose that American agriculture begin at once to make the transition to organic and that this be completed within three years. It can be done. The same ingenuity that has gone into bioengineering can make it happen.
   
4. We ask furthermore that all food sold in America begin making the transition to organic. This would be completed within five years.
   
5. We propose, furthermore,that every American have the right to choose the form of healing that suits them best,be it naturopathy, chiropractic, psychotherapy, live food or conventional medicine.

We believe that the savings in the cost of healthcare that would result from our proposals would be so marked that the government would easily be able to afford to to fund the program.

These are but a few modest proposals.Instead of propping up banks and bailing out car companies with your taxpayers dollars is it not time to get on with a program worthy of you the American people.

Jesse Schwartz, Ph.D.
President
Living Tree Community Foods

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