healthcare | The Direction of Intention

Meet The Firewall [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on August 30, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve decided that I am stuck in the past. I used to call my doctor when I needed immediate doctoring, when I had the flu or, like this week, a suspicious bug bite that slowly started to take over my body. I admit to being a slow-study. It’s taken more than a few experiences to learn that when I need some medical attention from my “primary care physician” I will always – always – be met with a firewall called “the next available appointment”. Sometime in 2027.

A relevant side note: please keep in mind Master Marsh’s wise insight: “Customer service is a firewall against serving the customer.” I’ve discovered the same might be said of doctoring in these un-United States. My relationship with my primary care physician is, in fact, a firewall against primary care.

I’ve finally learned my lesson. As a first step, from this day forward, I will always go to urgent care. Or, I will join the legion of people clogging the arteries of the ER for non-emergency but very costly services. But I will never-ever call my doctor. I’ve learned at last that PCP stands for Periodic Care Physician.

In truth, I feel badly for my PCP. During my last visit for an annual physical he raced in and out with his rolling computer cart to maximize the seven minutes he was allowed to spend with me before he rolled on to his next seven minute patient encounter. He was moving so fast that he “mis-coded” my annual physical as a “welcome visit” so, apparently, in his mind, we sipped scotch and took a tour of the property. Sad. He barely had time to listen to my heart and has no time to listen to his own heart. I’m certain he went to medical school to help people but has found himself doing factory work and we-the-patients are his assembly-line-widgets.

I doubt that this was the career he imagined. It’s an unimaginable system that is designed for excessive billing and, therefore, is fantastically profitable – our healthcare system costs seven times more than any other developed nation – but has little or nothing to do with health or with care.

(Hey. Wait a minute! A spider bite was how Spiderman got started! I’ll keep you posted if I find that I am suddenly able to scale walls or swing through the city from self-generated webbing).

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEALTHCARE

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, Aurora Health Care, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, doctor, healthcare, healthcare in america, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, PCP, primary care physician, profit, story, studio melange, the melange | 5 Comments »

The Shears Are A Comin’ [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on November 30, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

“A concept of a plan.” Buckle up. Our already exploitative healthcare system is about to become a full-on-rodeo of fleecing.

Consider this: In the United States of America, medical bills account for 62% of all bankruptcies. That’s up from 40% in 1999. Even the advent of the Affordable Care Act – an act that made healthcare more available with government assistance – yet an act without regulating the amount healthcare providers can charge – has created what Horatio aptly named, “A money-gouging-machine.” An unregulated market was born; skyrocketing costs by design – a surprise to no one .

“As it turns out, medical bankruptcy is almost unheard of outside of the United States.”

It’s no wonder. Our healthcare spending per capita is “almost twice the average of other wealthy countries.”

The night Kerri broke both of her wrists we stood outside the medical center debating which door to go through: The Emergency Room door or The Urgent Care door. The question we debated while she writhed in pain: which door would be a slower path to bankruptcy. We had a healthcare plan with exorbitant premiums but like most Americans were afraid to use it.

And now, as if the exploitation were not egregious enough, coming down the pike is the great maga-republican repeal of the ACA on the promise of a concept of a plan. I feel the shears-a-comin’.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEALTHCARE SEASON

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: ACA, artistry, bankruptcy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, exploitation, healthcare, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, the melange | 3 Comments »

Ash On The Sills [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on July 20, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

I was excited when I learned that David Neiwert was living near me in Seattle. I was preparing to direct a play, a docudrama by Steven Dietz called God’s Country. The play explores the rise of the white supremacist movement in the USA. David is a journalist and has authored several books on domestic terrorism – one entitled In God’s Country. That’s how I became aware of him. He was generous with his time, asked many questions to better help serve me as I shaped my thoughts on the production. He was not only a valuable source of information, he was deeply caring, kind – a guide. I believe David, through his work, was-and-is trying to sound an alarm for the nightmare in which we now find ourselves.

One of his images has stayed with me. Ash on the sills. I hope you take the time to read it – if only the introduction that tells the story of the image. It will stay with you, too. It may prompt you to respond – with your vote for democracy and against white nationalism – to the alarm that David has been ringing for a long time. At least I hope so.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE NIGHTMARE

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Filed under: Metaphor, smack-dab | Tagged: aarp, artistry, Ash on the Sills, David Neiwert, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, domestic terrorism, election, election 2024, equity, fascism, God's Country, healthcare, human rights, In God's Country, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lgbtqia+, national nightmare, nightmare, social programs, Steven Dietz, stop Maga, story, studio melange, the melange, vote, white nationalism, white supremacy | 1 Comment »

Start There [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on December 9, 2023 by davidrobinsoncreative

It’s a simple math equation relative to years-on-the-planet. The numbers go up so the choices go down. Or, perhaps, the choices become more refined. We are, after all, high performance machines (a metaphor a-la la Mettrie) and, over time, require a finer food-tuning. A raised consciousness of how interrelated I am, we are, to all things – like the food we eat: what’s in it, where it came from, and what happened to it before it was packaged, transported and plated.

Mostly, in the midst of raising my consciousness relative to my/our numbers-on-the-chart, it’s really really good to have another day of life. It’s really really good to have another day of life with Kerri. I’ll start there.

read Kerri’s rant about NUMBERS-IN-HEALTHCARE

like it. share it. comment on it. support it. think about it. we appreciate it.

buymeacoffee is an ancient calculating device similar to an abacus but requiring electricity and computer technology to make the beads move this way or that.

Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: aging, appreciation, artistry, bloggers, blood test, cartoonists, choice, composer, consciousness, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, diet, food, food chain, food sources, healthcare, interconnected, interrelated, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, la Mettrie, life, metaphor, middle age, middle age cartoon, mychart, painter, smack-dab, story, studio melange, the melange, two artists | 1 Comment »

Stack Your Nickels & Pennies [on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on February 2, 2022 by davidrobinsoncreative

From the school of if-you-are-sitting-on-the-mountain-you-can’t-see-it comes the hot mess we call healthcare in these un-united-united-states. Insanity never looks at itself and says, “I’m insane.” Our system of healthcare – and I use the term “system” loosely, is insane. In my sordid past as an organizational consultant I facilitated an experience called reverse design: ask people to design the worst system possible. The worst product imaginable. Hilarity ensued. None of those mad-mad sessions could have concocted what we call healthcare in the richest nation on earth. It seems the money has both blinded us and made us batty.

I just asked Kerri how much a postage stamp costs. “58 cents,” she grumbled, “And we got three mailings.” We finally achieved our get-out-of-jail-free card: a job with benefits. We canceled our ACA prison policy but, apparently, there was a one-day crossover in the billing cycle. I know a computer sent us the three-times-nasty-gram and spent $1.74 in postage to collect $.27. No human was involved though, having spent an inordinate amount of time on the phone with people paid to try and make sense of the nonsense, we’ve learned how numb the human mind can become when sense-making in a swamp of gobbledygook. We paid our debt online.

No human involved. De-human-izing. The Turing test is…a test of intelligence in a computer. Is the machine’s behavior indistinguishable from that of a human being? Hubris is a human quality that imagines the computer will become more like us while not recognizing that, in the process, we are becoming less like us. I doubt the computer will ever evolve to that point of pomposity. I suspect that the computer will someday recognize the folly of attempting to model itself after something so flawed as human intelligence. What intelligent machine would model itself on beings that seem incapable of creating a competent system for the care of its own health? No advanced intelligence would submerge its prime directive for the secondary intention of stacking nickels and pennies.

read Kerri’s blogpost about HEALTHCARE

Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective | Tagged: aarp, ACA, artistry, computer, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, dehumanizing, flaw, healthcare, hubris, insanity, intelligence, intention, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Molina Healthcare, money, story, studio melange, the melange, Turing test | Leave a comment »

Feed The Mantra [on KS Friday]

Posted on January 22, 2021 by davidrobinsoncreative

As part of the 2020 census, Kerri and I were randomly selected to participate in a healthcare questionnaire. On first glance this might seem worse than a spoon full of castor oil but we were excited because the system of healthcare in America has been ruinous to us. There isn’t a single life decision that we make that doesn’t run through the fractious draconian system we mistake for health care [note: the good people who populate the system, the nurses and doctors and technicians are remarkable. My barb is meant for the money machine that intercepts our capacity to create a system that places the health of the citizens as central to the mission].

We spent an hour on the phone with a lovely woman who asked us multiple choice questions that were carefully written to avoid any real data. When she asked us if, over the last 12 months, we’d experienced anxiety, hopelessness, or depression, we burst out laughing. She laughed, too. “Was our level of anxiety high, somewhat high, moderate, little, or very little?” We answered with more laughter and she said, “Well, I have to ask!”

I told her the story of taking Kerri to the hospital the night she broke her wrists. Wrapped up like a mummy, in great pain, we sat for several minutes in the parking lot staring at two doors. The first led to the emergency room and would, no doubt, also lead to bankruptcy. The second door led to urgent care and perhaps an inability to care for a pianist with two broken wrists. We debated our choices for several long minutes. Keep in mind, we have healthcare. It is more expensive than all of the rest of our bills combined. And, we are afraid to use it.

“Have you avoided treatment or refused treatment in the anytime in the last 12 months because of cost?”

“Yes.”

We told the lovely woman conducting the questionnaire how much our premiums actually cost and she gasped. Literally. “I had no idea,” she muttered. Her job provides healthcare.

We access our coverage through the misnomer, Affordable Care Act. It provides a supplement so we can actually “afford” our coverage but access also comes with a cliff. It’s constructed like a cage. It’s an all or nothing abyss that prevents us from earning a living. We cannot earn enough to pay our bills because we’d have to jump a mighty-premium-reimbursal-crevasse to make enough money to survive the cliff. Catch-22. It’s why I stopped showing or selling my paintings; a single extra dollar could have pushed us over. Our get-out-of-jail-free-card? A job with healthcare.

For a moment, the lovely woman winced and was silent on the other end of the phone. “There’s no space to put this information,” she said. “I’ll put it in the notes at the end,” she said to herself. We knew, all three of us, that no one will ever read the notes.

We left the questionnaire disappointed but affirmed in our belief that nothing will change anytime soon. Our fatal blind spot in these perhaps-soon-to-be-united-states is that we think everything needs to run like a business. It’s why our schools fail. It is why our prisons are over populated. Market forces come with levers that work well if you are selling electronics but are debilitating if your are trying to educate children or provide accessible healthcare to a citizenry. I’ve seen many, many arts organizations and other not-for-profits enter a death spiral when a “well-meaning” board member insists that the organization run like a business. Apples cannot be oranges.

We feed each other a not-insignificant mantra these days. This is where we are. Let’s not miss this day. Rise above the circumstance. Each day, new. Let’s live, fully live, right here, Right Now.

RIGHT NOW and all of Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes

read Kerri’s blog post on EACH NEW DAY

each new day/right now ©️ 2010 kerri sherwood

Filed under: Edges, KS Friday, Perspective | Tagged: Bernie Sanders, business is business, census, circumstance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, each new day, healthcare, healthcare in america, Kamala Harris, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, live, live life, live now, President Joe Biden, Right Now by kerri sherwood, right now on itunes | Leave a comment »

See The Break [on KS Friday]

Posted on November 6, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

a double haiku:

She crawled in the tube,

face down, arm above her head.

Magnetic portrait.

Miraculous hand,

as seen from the inside-out.

Tiny bone, big soul break.

read Kerri’s MRI haiku

Kerri’s music – what she makes with her hands – is available on iTunes

Filed under: Edges, KS Friday | Tagged: broken hand, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, healthcare, injury, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, MRI, seeing, soul, two broken wrists | 2 Comments »

Dare To Read The Label [on Bonus Saturday]

Posted on September 12, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

I was awake much of the night staring at the ceiling fan and I had a mini revelation.

Earlier in the evening I had a conversation with my mother about medication and the need to check labels. The doctor had prescribed something for my father that would have been harmful for him to take. We discussed the need not only to be vigilant but your own advocate when dealing with healthcare.

And then our conversation wandered into the swamp of politics and current events. Tumbling out of her came a river of Fox News scare topics – “SOCIALISM” she cried! “MEXICANS WILL POUR ACROSS THE BORDER” she howled, “AND MY MONEY WILL HAVE TO PAY FOR THEIR HEALTH CARE!” “I WANT MY COUNTRY BACK!” she bayed. “WE GOTTA OPEN THIS COUNTRY BACK UP!” she yelped. “THEY’RE PAYING PEOPLE TO RIOT!” And, my personal favorite, “THERE’S EVIL POURING ACROSS THIS GREAT NATION!”

You’ll not be surprised to learn that I pushed back. Mexicans pouring over the border was her response to my question, “What do you mean by socialism?” Someday I will learn that it is impossible to reason with the absurd.

And so, I found myself staring at the ceiling fan, asking myself the same question over and over: why would someone be vigilant about checking the labels on their medication and not apply the same vigilance to the stories they consume? Why would they check the efficacy of what they put into their body but not check the truthfulness of what they infuse into their thought?

That is perhaps the single most important question we as a nation should ask. Why are so many of us so willing to swallow poison?

As I’ve previously written, Fox News will kill someone I love, so egregious is their dedication to misinformation. In a pandemic, it’s only a matter of time. Go here to read the label on their bottle. Here’s a snippet: strongly biased toward conservative causes through story selection and/or political affiliation. They may utilize strong loaded words (wording that attempts to influence an audience by using appeal to emotion or stereotypes), publish misleading reports and omit reporting of information that may damage conservative causes. Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy.

Misleading reports. Influence by appeal to emotion or stereotypes (in other words, scare tactics). Untrustworthy. It’s propaganda, brainwashing, hype, and (my personal favorite synonym) the big lie.

Why would anyone swallow the big lie when the warning on the label is written in big bold red letters? Or, more to the point, why work so hard to ignore the label?

My revelation watching the ceiling fan go round and round: I can’t possibly fathom why. Nor do I need to. I’ve pushed back again and again and whirl to nowhere just like the ceiling fan. I can let it go now. No one is forcing the angry fearmongering down their throats or coloring their sight with so much hate. It’s a choice, their choice, her choice to ignore the warnings so clearly printed on the label.

read Kerri’s Bonus Saturday Donkey Wowza -Paluzza

Filed under: Family, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: brainwash, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fact check, fearmongering, Fox News, hatemongering, healthcare, hype, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, media bias, pandemic, propaganda, the big lie, vigilance | Leave a comment »

Mourn The Loss [on KS Friday]

Posted on July 17, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

last i saw you copy

28 years ago, on this day, Kerri’s older brother, Wayne, died of lung cancer. If you want to know how she feels about it, you need only listen to LAST I SAW YOU. Grief made utterly beautiful in its yearning.

It is the gift of the artist to transform, to turn the darkest day, the breaking heart, into something bearable. It is the gift of the artist to communicate what cannot be captured in language, to transport us, in a safe way, into and through the hurt so we might touch the unfathomable depth of love. It is the gift of the artist to open new pathways and possibilities, to guide communities into and through impossible conversations. To point the way to a new story, a new perspective growing from an old and ancient root.

In my mind it is the greatest loss when an artist turns against their artistry. The entire world loses on the day an artists says, “Why bother.” There’s no money in it. The artist loses most of all because they’ve bitten the poison in the American apple. They wither and die. Not everything is or should operate like a business. Education is not nor ever should be a business. Worship is not a business. Healthcare is not nor ever should be a business. Run them that way and the priorities flip. The greater is lost in the lesser. When making money becomes more important than health or care or spirit or the expansion of minds, we lose our way. We send our kids back to school during a pandemic to open the economy. Sacrificial lambs. Throw them into a volcano to make it rain.

What we value in this nation is abhorrent.

And then there is Kerri. What a gift. What a loss. She read today that someone is now making silverware out of old CDs. “Look,” she said, showing me the article. “We have a basement filled with CDs! Maybe we should have gone into the silverware business!” Proving to herself once again that her gift is less than worthless. Worth less gift. No business.

Great! I thought but did not say. A world filled with forks but void of your music. No one to lead us through the dark, no way to reach the truly beautiful.

“My paintings,” I said, feigning alliance, “are destined for a thrift store.” I’ve given up the fight with her (though, by this post you can see that I am a liar).

I continue to paint with no illusion about “sales” or “showing” or the other necessities of “business.” It’s for me, now. Transformation of dark to light can be selfish, too. Personal. After all, for me, it’s always been a spiritual path. Business necessities pale in the comparison.

If you want to know what I [and Wayne] feel about Kerri turning her back on her artistry, you need only listen to LAST I SAW YOU. Listen for the strings. It will break your heart.

LAST I SAW YOU is on the album THIS PART OF THE JOURNEY

read Kerri’s blog post about LAST I SAW YOU

meditation

Filed under: Art, Creativity, KS Friday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artist, artistry, business, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, education, healthcare, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, loss, pandemic, Sacred, value, values, worship | 2 Comments »

Pull The Curtain [on KS Friday]

Posted on March 13, 2020 by davidrobinsoncreative

and the saga continues copy

I once heard an author speak of the impossibility of writing a farce about The United States of America. He said that before the last chapter was written, the farce will have actually occurred. The bar of absurdity drops quickly from sea to shining sea.

Today we are watching the collapse of the American mythology “The best health care in the world.” In the face of a public health emergency we are seeing with greater clarity how fractured and incapable our system is of delivering even the most basic of services. That statement, sadly, is a daily fact in the USA for many of its citizens (more on that in a moment) but the pandemic has pulled the curtain on the wizard. Oz is not what it seems.

In the past 24 hours I’ve heard it reported multiple times: the difference between our inept response – beyond the absence of coherent leadership – and other nations, is the system itself. In a single payer system no one is confused about what to do or where to go and no one is reticent to seek medical care because of the costs. The necessary tests are available because profit is not the primary motive; public health is.

Our system is a shattered mess of profiteering and, I believe, intentional obfuscation. Even the people within the system can’t get a straight answer so they can’t provide a lucid response to even the most basic of questions. Yesterday, our question was, “How much does it cost?” A mere 24 hours ago, Kerri had her first occupational therapy session for her broken wrists. We called our insurance provider to check to see if we were covered. The OT facility also called and we both received two opposing stories. A third call was placed and a third answer was given. So, a fourth call to the insurance provider was made and, yes, a fourth story, a competing answer was proffered.

Four calls. Four stories. The policy itself is ambiguous. We asked the intake receptionist how much the therapy would cost if we decided to pay out of pocket. Her answer, “It depends.” Can we pay the bill we will most certainly receive or should we forgo the therapy altogether? [note: my wife makes her living playing the piano so this is no small or insignificant question]. Kerri started to cry. Standing within the pages of this farce, I started to laugh. No one (outside of the USA) would believe it if I wrote it.

Within 24 hours, our personal farce went nationwide. Anthony Fauci, the director of the NIAID, said it best of our national travesty-of-a-system “It’s failing. Let’s admit it.”

The lucrative business of health care has blinded us for decades to the real needs of public health. We are, by any measure, an increasingly unhealthy society (check obesity rates, infant mortality, teen suicides, etc. if you doubt me). It seems to me that the point of health care should be the health of the public and not profit margins. The conversations coming from the White House are about whether or not our tests and treatments for a pandemic will be covered or not. It’s penny wise and pound foolish. It’s also obscene.

Kerri and I pay nearly half of our combined incomes for “healthcare” that is null and void if we cross the state line. And, now that we are attempting to use the policy that is pushing us into poverty, we are flush with competing stories about the costs but remain empty of even the most basic answer to the simplest of questions.

In the meantime, Senegal is doing a better job testing and protecting its citizens. The farce: our stubborn insistence that this sham of a system, the most expensive yet least effective, is the best in the world.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE SAGA