What will it take to change the system?

This is a question I ask myself a lot. What will it take to create a health care system that truly cares for all people, sick and well, young and old, healthy and not?

It seems self-evident to me what we need. But my eyes were opened a bit about the way the rest of the world sees it when I sat in on a class at the Center for Patient Partnerships here in Madison.

The guest speaker was a woman who's worked in health care policy at the national and state levels. She explained that in order to change policy, there must first be some shared perception of a problem. And she pointed out that for those who have great health care (say, our elected officials), there is no perception of a problem and so no incentive to work toward change.

Which makes it all the more clear to me that we need to raise our voices around inequities in the health care system. Add your story here if it's appropriate. If it's not, please send it to me. I think maybe we need another blog where we can collect stories of the inequities of the health care system--and then send them to every member of Congress as often as possible.