Adaptive Medicine - Baba Brinkman

A song commissioned by Swedish Medical Centre in Seattle, which I performed at their Health Care Symposium in October 2010. Download the track from iTunes here:
http://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/adaptive-medicine/id398122342

Swedish asked me to write a rap song about the debate over US health care reform, and cautioned that it shouldn't be a "partisan rant" but that I was free to express my views. Most of it is directly based on Atul Gawande's writing in the New Yorker, mainly these two excellent articles:
Testing Testing: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/12/14/091214fa_fact_gawande

The Cost Conundrum: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande

By the way, if anyone wants to make a real video for this song with collage video and images, please get in touch with me. I just did this quick because I wanted it to be out there in some form.

Commissioned by Swedish Medical Centre: http://www.swedish.org

Sources:
Atul Gawande: "The Cost Conundrum"
Atul Gawande: "Testing, Testing"
Wikipedia: "Canada vs US Health Care"
Wilkenson & Pickett: "The Spirit Level"

Lyrics by Baba Brinkman
Music by Mr. Simmonds

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• health care
• obama
• reform
• insurance
• doctors
• medicine
• evolution
• darwin
• statistics
• natural selection
• artificial selection
• atul gawande
• new yorker
• debate

[jussts]

Fantastic. I'll never understand how the right wing in this country have convinced so many people to disregard their own interests (indeed their own lives) and side with the insurance companies.

[lilililililililiilii]

AWESOME!

[CleverFoxShifter]

How...depressing:/



[DJMartin68]

To continue: Doctors in North America are woefully ignorant of nutrition and fail to appreciate the impact nutrition has on health. They are only interested in treatments that make money (even in the Canadian system) and as such push pharmaceutical and surgical treatments to the exclusion of all other forms of treatment. Current medical practices focus on parts of an integrated system but fails to appreciate the inter-connectedness of those parts. I could go on...

[DJMartin68]

I gotta say, I enjoy Baba Brinkman's work much more when he avoids political issues. Funny that he says it is not about left or right and then goes on to espouse a very left wing idea. I do agree... sort of... that it is really not a left or right issue but for different reasons. Sure, there is no one "dying in the streets" in Canada but they are dying in the hallways of our hospitals waiting for service. In addition, calling it "health care" is a misnomer. It is really illness care.

[Hemothep]

And instead of letting people DIE in the street, we have FREE HEALTH CARE!!!

[1xrosexredx1]

@jussts People are comfortable in their inherited preconceptions and fears. Republicans (much like clergymen) are very good at tapping into these fears and wrapping their own agendas into them. Much like how banning abortion makes for more pliable, desperate, and uneducated workforce.

[brangelito]

love it!

[Solarcoreg]

Excellent

[rzq100]

dont be using socialism as a word for evil. Socialism is actualy a very realiable system in a democratic government. It would lead to fair income, fair market prices, and there wouldnt be as many people in the country holding our entire economy in there wallet. The US has already become a somewhat socialistic nation in the last hundred years thanks to inteligent men like FDR. He knew that a system of laize faire would not work.

[BigLebowsk]

I dont know... but I think fire department can possibly work without state... In very charitable nation...