Coloring Health Care System Craziness

As a someone with a day job in health care data analysis, I've been closely following what's been going on with plans to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) aka Obamacare. You may have heard the phrase the heath care system is "broken." The ACA was basically a series of band aids. If you've taken a health economics course, you'd learn that many health economists (including my dad, Dr. A. James Lee) would argue that traditional market forces do not work in health care. Why? One reason is the health care providers control both the supply and demand. There are many others. "The Incidental Economist" notes a few, if you want further reading: http://theincidentaleconomist.com/wordpress/health-insurance-market-failures-and-what-can-be-done-about-them/

So where am I going with this...bringing it back to art (sort of), I'd been playing with the idea of doing coloring sheets to go along with the adult coloring book craze instead of just coloring in coloring books with Tyler. Here's my coloring sheet for "Health Care System Craziness" for all you health care policy wonks out there who are anxious to break out the crayons, markers, and colored pencils:​

Health Care System Craziness

In pondering all of this, what I've come to is that since a single payer system is politically not feasible in the United States at this point in time, what we could do is at least try to simplify the system. Can we please set one set of standards that everyone follows for health care data format, cost and utilization reporting, and quality measure reporting at a minimum? I suppose it's too politically unfeasible to ask that insurer and provider contracting also be standardized since it's proprietary and confidential. Seeing all the variations that impact a physician through a physician group or accountable care organization is headache inducing. It's a wonder there are any primary care physicians left. Many would like the government to step back from intervening, but what if the government could act as the coordinator and impose some universal standards for all insurers public and private instead of just for Medicare and Medicaid?

​Off my health care soapbox for now. More art next time. My toddler son, Tyler was sick last weekend and then he shared his bug with me probably by insisting that I eat one of his raisins. So not much art has been happening lately... In retrospect I realized of course that I should have refused the raisin and endured having him upset with me for not eating it. 

​I think I'm finally starting to get somewhere with my "Threads of Resistance" artwork though. I actually committed to a background fabric.

​Sonja