While most of the health care conversation over the last few months has focused on presidential plans for improving our current system at a national level, there's another discussion to open at the local level.
Most conversations about health care emphasize how we could do better with the same resources we have today. In the face of limits to energy supplies and increasing demand (well, it was increasing before the economy plunged), those conversations may prove much more difficult. Putting these challenges into a local context, Bethany Schroeder starts by examining what is available to Tompkins County residents in the first of a pair of health care articles, 'A Local Health Resource Assessment,' at: http://tclocal.org/2008/10/health_care_in_an_energyconstr.html Schroeder's inventory examines a variety of different aspects of health care, different approaches, and different resources. This piece doesn't provide a solution to upcoming challenges, but lays the groundwork for the conversation. (A further examination of the problems and proposed solutions will come in the next installment.) We'd definitely be interested in comments and suggestions on this piece, and welcome feedback. We'd love to hear questions, criticisms, and additional ideas. TCLocal is a group of citizens developing strategies for dealing with energy descent in Tompkins County. To that end, we're publishing periodic articles, examining specific topics in the harsh light of higher energy prices. You can find them at: http://www.tclocal.org/ Previous articles have examined growing fruit and managing roads and bridges in Tompkins County after the peak, as well as water systems and land use planning. Upcoming articles, about one per month, will cover small livestock, waste disposal, and foodsheds. A followup to this article, continuing the conversation, will appear in the spring. The TCLocal web site is specifically designed to get your feedback on these ideas they are developed. These articles are a starting point for a conversation we hope will include a wide variety of readers coming at these issues from different perspectives. We welcome comments - they work now! - and hope to find more good ideas through public discussion. Thanks, Simon St.Laurent Chair, TCLocal _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
