LCTPU, continued

LCTPU= Little Crap That Piles Up.

In the 1980s, a musician named Jesse Winchester owned a home recording studio. In it, he had over $25,000 worth of equipment. As the studio aged, the sound decayed. The recording quality he was getting was no longer good enough for him to continue using his studio.

Jesse hired a technician to replace the mixing board and other electronics. The technician looked the set-up over, and gave his professional opinion. He suggested that the equipment did not need to be replaced, but rather very thoroughly cleaned. His estimate: $2000 total, half for supplies, half labor, one week until completion. Winchester delightedly accepted the offer.

With professional knowledge and skill, the technician was able to save Jesse Winchester $23,000 dollars. The aging studio is comparable to our aging bodies. Like the recording studio, cleaning up little crap can save big bucks. Many major medical expenses could be avoided by attending to LCTPU.

The biggest health care crisis is that the whole model is wrong. The current focus is on handling disaster after it occurs. That is too late! The LCTPU factor is costing us insane amounts.

Shifting to prevention and early intervention will save immense money and time. This shift will simultaneously create personal responsibility in a way that is affordable, sustainable, and actually more fun.

I suggest we start with early intervention. It is a smaller leap than going right to prevention. We learn to fix the small stuff. Along the way we learn what actually works, and what causes damage. Like most projects, taking the whole pile at once is overwhelming. LCTPU is workable in bite-sized pieces.

After we have an idea of how to fix some stuff, we can start to learn how to prevent the problems in the first place. We can compare what caused bad things to happen with our normal operations. Maybe there is a big difference, maybe not. We can learn which differences matter. We can take simple actions that change our basic reality.

Our health care paradigm runs on a panic driven need for heroism. We can shift to a pragmatic wisdom based in awareness of our ability to act in our own behalf. LCTPU is the place to start acting. This is an inherently advantageous perspective. Children need heroes. Adults need pragmatism and personal responsibility. We need more adults.