Today’s post is an unusual one for me. I spend a lot of time watching and listening to what’s happening in our world, ways we’ve shifted and changed (or not), and for some time now (years??), I have observed and felt an overwhelming sense of despair. Everyone wants to do something, but none of us know what to do.
Until about a week ago, when I had an idea. And I’m hoping that it speaks to you, enough that you might forward this along or share it and maybe, just maybe, through the six-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon kind of magic, this might actually get to MacKenzie Scott.
Here goes:
Dear MacKenzie,
I imagine if we met, you’d say “Call me MacKenzie” because based on the little bit I know of you, you seem to be a woman of no bullshit. Where others with vast resources at their disposal have legions of employees and overhead and expenses, you’re out there with one assistant, writing checks so the money can get where it needs to go.
Thank you, MacKenzie, for showing the way generosity can be beautiful and simple.
I’m writing this and sending it into the great ether of the interwebs in hopes that this idea finds you.
I think most of the systems in our country are deeply outdated. Downright broken. And I want to do something about that. I have no platform or following of substance, but I have an idea. One that I think could start to roll the boulder with your support.
What if we crowd sourced the next evolution of health care by leveraging the amazing minds out there, not just the few in government or positions of power?
What if we changed health care in the way other creative art and systems solutions have emerged – with a hackathon? It could go like this:
In true hackathon style, the challenge is presented: Design a health care system best suited to keep us ALL healthy and thriving within our means
Set a time frame for the challenge, like six months
Put up an incentive ($1M? $2M?…what would it be worth to have a health care system that makes and keeps people healthy without terrifying debt???) that will be awarded to the individual or team that designs the best solution
Request that those who have decision-making power (those within our government and/or who might fund a new system) help judge and declare a winner, and help set the plan in motion
Consider the domino effect. If this could work for health care, it could extend so much further as well. I can think of several more systems that desperately need an overhaul: public education, the future of the climate, homelessness, the deep divide in our country…
I’m asking for one. I’m asking if you would sponsor an evolutionary move for this one foundational system, the one that is supposed to help us live healthy lives. And I’m hoping that the outcome is so addictive that you (and others!) decide to do it again and again until our whole system is its next exquisite version.
I have nothing personal to gain from this – well, aside from the enormous gain of being part of a culture that is evolving its systems along with itself and all the HUGE benefits that come with that kind of shift.
If you want to talk more about this (I know it’s more complex than these simple bullets), I’m here and eager to work on this. Or, if this idea doesn’t light the same fire for you, maybe you know someone for whom it would, and maybe you would pass it along, just at it (hopefully) has been passed to you. In either case, in the very slim odds that this has actually reached you, MacKenzie, thank you for reading.
With care and hope for our collective future,
Alene Gabriel
Yes, fiction, but Matt Damon’s character, a janitor, in Good Will Hunting solved a ridiculously hard math problem that university students couldn’t solve…solutions can come from anywhere!