In a recent conversation aboard my flight home to see my mother in Ohio I began to recreationally muse about the root of societies problems. There’s a thousand different ways to break down the turbulent cycles, and troubles that curl back on themselves and pound us into our belief that the world is full of evil scary things. We believe ourselves to be helpless to the onslaught, and unable to fight back against the myriad of troubles plaguing us. We all know the world is pretty messed up, but nobody seems to have great solutions.
We all know that fixing large issues would have compounding benefits. If the food industry served healthier food there would be fewer health problems, and less National Healthcare spending, and more money to spend on education, and then less crime due to a highly educated population. Chains of positive effects like this can be fun to think about, but the fact is that jumping in with an approach like this is going to threaten someone. Mcdonalds employs millions worldwide- be it directly or indirectly. So, if you go after their business as something to be exterminated then you are directly threatening the well being of everyone associated with that industry. Whatever we chose to do, we can all agree on the mutual benefits of chains like these… if only we could get them started.
One of the major downfalls to starting this type of chain is the money system and the concept of “value”. If you talk to a business person you will find they tend to think in terms of money. “Where’s the money in healthy people?” “Where’s the money in healthy food?” “Where’s the money in education spending?” However, there is a remarkable business effect that occurs when these people begin to ignore money and instead pursue things of value. Apple released the iPhone, and allowed ANYONE who wanted to write applications for it. A business person might have looked at this and said, “why don’t you write all the apps people will need, and sell them all yourself? You will make more money that way!” But, the value in allowing everyone to explore the technology in their own way and find the things THEY wanted to do has allowed for some pretty remarkable breakthroughs. Apple, as a side effect, has far more money due to everyone uniting on their platform. Google is another major corporation that has pursued things of value, and thought of money second. Initially, their investors were confused as to where their revenue would come from… I’ve studied the company and I don’t even fully understand it… however, one can’t argue with the results. When companies go after valuable things- they will eventually find money in them. This pursuit of value before money idea is a legitimate business strategy that, when your ‘thing’ is valuable, yields remarkable results.
There is money in terminally unwell patients. Medication, doctor bills, insurance, HMO’s etc. etc. Because of this, the system has continued to function this way. Nobody has yet considered that there would be value in caring for someone and teaching them to get healthy and stay healthy. It’s easier to sell medication at $22/ pill than it is to motivate someone to eat better and exercise- just to sell them a pair of running shoes. The only ones with a vested interest in healthy patients are the insurance companies. If an Insurance company could find a way to REWARD for being healthy instead of punish for being unhealthy, then people could find a light at the end of the tunnel. Much like the Google or Apple models I believe that there is VALUE in healthy people, and where there is value- money is sure to follow.
