Clearly, we cannot emulate the ancient Chinese healthcare system. We have grown too entangled in our egotistical systems to untangle them without causing the whole system to collapse. The Chinese model, however, can serve as an example of how simple, inexpensive, and health-promoting our healthcare system should be.
No one understands balance better than physicians. In medicine, this state is called “homeostasis.” Webster’s Dictionary defines it as “a relatively stable state of equilibrium or a tendency toward such a state between the different but interdependent elements or groups of elements of an organism.”
Remember the rule of collaboration and self-fulfillment we talked about in Chapter 10? In medicine, it is expressed as the last part of this definition: “different but interdependent elements or groups of elements of an organism.”
Homeostasis is also what defines health or illness within the body. Thus, physicians can easily grasp the concept. Hence, studying both of nature’s qualities—giving and receiving—is the first thing to do. This will create an awareness and a sense of urgency to change today’s lame system.
Anyone who ever studied biology knows that a healthy cell gives its utmost support to its host organism, and in return receives its sustenance and protection from the organism. A cancerous cell does just the opposite—it takes all it can from the organism and gives it nothing in return. As a result, the host is consumed and dies along with the cancer.
For this reason, researchers and physicians are the best candidates for a conscious change of heart. They will understand the need for mutual guarantee among all members of humanity better than anyone. And they will also understand that the days of today’s system are numbered, and that the need for change is imminent and pressing.
Once these intelligent people, who have engineered the mammoth we call “modern medicine,” discover the missing element in the equation, we can expect the healing of the healthcare system to be swift and easy. Because of the complexity of today’s healthcare system, it is vital that all its participants will not only be aware of the need for balance, but will want to realize it simultaneously.Then, just as the symptoms of humanity’s illness appear most acutely in the healthcare system, healing will manifest itself most dramatically in precisely that system.