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A Critical Omission of the Healthcare Debate
By
Thomas Addaquay
www.greenxprize.com
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A Critical Omission of the Healthcare Debate:
Several months have passed since the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare
failed to get a majority vote in the House of Representatives. For all the arguments
proffered by opponents of repeal a critical part of the conversation is missing: Health
care delivery ever-evolving from a core physiological medical discipline is meshing
with information technology creating wholly new disciplines such as bioinformatics
and changing the very conversation.
The genome sequencing project cloning of Dolly the sheep tele-medical advances
as well as recent prospects of neural lacing are all possible in part due to advances
in Nano-computing utilised to address humanity’s most daunting health care
challenges. This places health care delivery in the prism of information technology.
Thus the denial of health care could ultimately be a far worse preposition than
denying broadband access to rural communities.
Preparing for the implosion of AI recent debates around the world about robotics
replacing and displacing of workers across multiple disciplines feature ideas such as
universal basic incomes UBI. Perhaps those left out of universal coverage could
now find purpose and justification for inclusion by simply feeding a “universal” health
care delivery engine driving real time changes to their healthcare. Such an
aggregate of health-related knowledge has the potential to improve our
understanding delivery of care prevention of diseases and more all in exchange of
a universal basic income.
The debate over health care coverage therefore poses an existential threat to
humanity. This should concern every law maker around the world and each solution
is best tailored to embrace their local challenges. Today the debut of Green X Prize
presents an opportunity to gather together brilliant young minds whose primary
objective will be to solve challenges facing both the sciences and humanities with
sustainable solutions. It is worth highlighting a couple of the fixtures in the “Go
Green Get Rich” memoir which anticipated and predicted this several years before
the international conversation took its current turn.
The first is a paragraph on political conundrum pointing out that individual and party
political positional shifts are the result of a self-interest driven agenda each
threatening the foundational purposes of most democracies.
Take for instance 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney. Following the killings in a
movie theater in Aurora Colorado Romney offered a tepid response to the question
of whether the country should enact new gun laws. Whether Romney himself
believes that US citizens should be allowed to own arsenals of semi-automatic
weapons does not matter. Modern politics dictated the thing that mattered in that
moment: Romney did not want to upset or alienate the National Rifle Association.
And he certainly didn’t want to lose their financial support.
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My intention is not to pick on Romney or even the conservative right. What I am
demonstrating is that even in the case of a politician who believes that green
initiatives are important for a healthier economy and environment change might not
occur because of political influence. Instead many politicians have been
indoctrinated to rally behind big oil and eschew everything that even suggests the
introduction of greening. Politicians will always abhor polices that are good for the
planet or otherwise if they do not fit into the core principles of their political party or
the sources of their financial backing.
It is not just politicians who suffer from self-centeredness. Take anyone you like from
any background and you will find that their chief priority is looking out for themselves.
There is not anything inherently wrong in this self-preservation is important. But it is
also important to consider the larger world.
Imagine a bartender in a big city. Suppose his family has worked in the retail
distribution of liquor for at least a generation. Having grown up in and around a bar
we can guess a few things about his background and perspectives. If it is a seedy
bar he might hold a worldview steeped heavily in the realities of the underground.
He has seen his fair share of addicts and drug dealers prostitutes and pimps
perhaps bookies and hit men and all other sorts of the criminal element. We surmise
that he has likely seen and served many alcoholics and even though he knows
drinking is harmful to them he will continue to serve them liquor because he is more
interested in the welfare of his family’s business than his patrons’ health.
Similarly when a person is elected to office he does not change his stripes. He
continues to compromise the welfare of his constituents in the same way that the
bartender com- promises the welfare of the alcoholics in the bar. His voice will sound
human and caring but his actions will be fruitless and unproductive. His drive will be
to speak as powerfully or as meekly as the circumstances require to safeguard the
interest of the party and to get paid generously by special interest groups while
ignoring the needs of his constituents.
So here we have the primary problem the ultimate political conundrum: how to make
hundreds of self-serving politicians look beyond their immediate personal interests
and start doing things that benefit the world at large With so few substantial green
technology patrons available and able to buy the loyalty of the people in power it is
likely to be an up- hill battle. Until then politicians will likely maintain their course
upholding unsustainable environmentally damaging economically draining and
national security-threatening energy policies.” Addaquay 2017
In addition to this example from the book we found such positional changes
employed skillfully if unexpectedly by none other than the president of the United
States himself. goo.gl/4kXAGY
As the healthcare debate raged on after the eventual rejection of Trump Care
pundits were quick to point out that the U.S. was ceding power to China. We have
theoretical anecdotes favoring that possibility with the U.S eventually ceding
economic supremacy to China. Much as Great Britain ceded economic power to the
United States as Adam Smith so long ago predicted would occur pointing to the
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clumsy and expensive nature of British colonization compared to the United States’
embrace of wealth acquisition through corporations. Smith accurately forecasted the
end of Great Britain as an economic super power
As the healthcare debate raged on after the eventual rejection of Trump Care
pundits were quick to point out that the U.S was ceding power to China. We have
theoretical anecdotes favoring that possibility with the U.S eventually ceding
economic supremacy to China. Much as Great Britain ceded economic power to the
United States as Adam Smith so long ago predicted would occur pointing to the
clumsy and expensive nature of British colonization compared to the United States’
embrace of wealth acquisition through corporations. Smith accurately forecasted the
end of Great Britain as an economic super power
“Consider the Occupy movement. What began as a peaceful demonstration against
Wall Street on September 17 2011 grew into massive protests in more than 600
communities across the country. Given these numbers politicians and business
leaders should count themselves lucky as protests today look far different than they
did at the time of the American Revolution when public beatings imprisonment and
wanton destruction of property were the norm. The substantial turnout of the so-
called “99-percenters” represents what I believe to be a sign that the US and the
world must brace for dramatic change. This is no blip in the economic cycle. We are
on the cusp of a new epoch of wealth creation which we have not seen before at
least not since the Industrial Revolution.
I will demonstrate the parallels between the economic and social upheaval that led to
the collapse of empires and the rise of industry and the new frontier of individual
wealth creation rendered possible by recent advancements in consumer technology.
In short if we examine the sum of American economic history what we will find is
that this country has experienced three distinct eras of wealth generation:
1 The first period saw the creation of wealth solely at the nation-state level. This
was the age of empires wherein sovereign nations used their military advantage to
amass economies steeped in gold and silver.
2 The second era would be known as the Industrial Revolution a time when the
dynamics of wealth creation were increasingly privatized due to changes in
economic thinking and the development of mass production.
3 The third and latest era has been borne of technological advancement as key
developments of consumer technology have led directly to substantial wealth
creation. What was once attainable only for a nation-state became possible for a
powerful corporation. What was once only possible for a titan possessed of a
massive workforce and tremendous control over raw materials became possible for
any basement programmer with a great idea. King George became John D.
Rockefeller who became Mark Zuckerberg. As with Smith’s Theory of Moral
Sentiments first published in 1759 and the concept of assembly-line labor the
current model of wealth creation is in need of a new and powerful idea to render it
stable. We need an idea that will make individual wealth creation more accessible to
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the common man an idea that will take this tumultuous world economy and turn it on
its head for the better.
In 1776 the world economy was shifting toward a new world order. Advances in
technology and economic thinking paved the way for a new privatized model of
wealth creation placing it in the hands of industrial titans. While economic disparity
often leads to social political and economic change it also sometimes leads to a
gradual and relatively peaceful decline. Consider what happened to the British
Empire following the American and Industrial Revolutions. The Empire declined
greatly over the century that followed. Britain’s cost of support and control had
become too substantial for it to sustain its sprawling territories.
Whenever structural economic change happens the legislative branch of
government loses its prioritizing capabilities. This was evident during England’s
transition from a nation with military priorities to a country with industrial imperatives.
The Great Depression ushered in social changes that made taxes increasingly
necessary due to the increased cost of social programs and the size of the
government. Since the Great Recession of 2008 there has been some confusion in
the priorities of our legislative branch to say the least.
Today the US may succumb to a similar fate. The world’s new economic power
appears to be China while the US appears to be fading and becoming dependent
on China. Unless this country can come to embrace new economic principles and
technologies it stands to go the way of the British Empire.
Without a new brand of economic political and social thinking the Great Recession
may never truly end. This is why a new way of earning wealth is so important.”
Addaquay 2017
As you embark on this journey bear in mind that future innovations will go a long
way towards eventually healing our planet. We hope to sustain the rewards monthly
after the maiden winner is announced. Good luck and may the best person/team win.
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Around the world people see the need for socially conscious change but
entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas have lacked a way to share their ideas. No longer.
Our platform enables sharing great ideas that benefit communities and generates
profits for public private and corporate investors. Join us
Friendly competition and reward for your innovation.
Visit: https://www.greenxprize.com for more information.
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