Learning to Know the Truth About Health Care Systems and Everyday Care
Recent reporting from The Washington Post highlights growing concern over rising health insurance premiums and the strain they place on families, employers, and public budgets. At the heart of this debate is a familiar tension between healthcare systems and patient care—between managing risk at scale and responding to individual need.
The Laws of the Kingdom
The article describes how efforts to control costs increasingly rely on centralized rules, standardized coverage decisions, and complex regulatory frameworks. These approaches are designed to manage risk, maintain predictability, and protect the system as a whole.
They are not malicious. They exist to prevent chaos.
Yet when care is governed primarily from a distance, people often wait longer, encounter more barriers, and struggle to understand why care that feels necessary in lived experience becomes difficult to access in practice. What works for the population does not always work for the person.
The Law of the Prairie
In contrast, the law of the prairie reflects how care actually unfolds in real life—close to home, shaped by relationships, timing, trust, and early signals that rarely fit neatly into standardized categories.
This is where symptoms are first noticed. Where changes feel subtle before they become urgent. Where care depends on responsiveness rather than rulemaking.
Holding the Tension
Modern health systems must care for populations. That truth matters. But population-level efficiency can coexist with individual failure. Systems can function, budgets can balance, and metrics can improve—while people still fall through the cracks.
Learning to know the truth means holding both realities at once.
A My28Days® Reflection Cycle
Days 1–7: Noticing
Notice where healthcare feels distant from everyday life. Notice who waits—and how long.
Days 8–14: Understanding
Notice the difference between caring for populations and caring for people.
Days 15–21: Holding Tension
Hold the truth that systems can function and still fail individuals.
Days 22–28: Returning to the Everyday
Notice where care already happens quietly—in relationships, attention, and early noticing.
You don’t have to resolve this tension today.
In complex systems, simply noticing where the prairie is being overlooked is enough.
Read the full Washington Post story:
My28Days.org is an educational and advocacy platform supported by the Mary Elizabeth Conover Foundation. For more information or to lend support, contact Office@ConoverFoundation.org
