Seminar: The Evolution of the Corrupt American Health Care System and What We Can Do About It with Tony Biglan

Abstract:

Over the past fifty years, advocacy for free market economics has fostered the evolution of an economic system in which the primary focus of many corporations is the maximization of profits. The result has been that many corporations engage in practices that harm people. I will describe how profit maximization has corrupted the health care system. Then, I will suggest steps that can be taken to create a society in which profit maximization is not the only selecting consequence. Rather, we can evolve a more equitable and health society by seeing to it that the consequences for corporate action balance profits with the impact of their actions on people’s health and wellbeing.

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About the Speaker:

Dr. Biglan is a Senior Scientists at Oregon Research Institute and President of Values to Action. His book, The Nurture Effect: How the Science of Human Behavior Can Improve Our Lives and Our World, won him an award from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis. Based on the accumulated knowledge about what humans need to thrive, Dr. Biglan created Values to Action, a nonprofit organization that helps communities come together around a shared vision and create Action Circles to implement evidence-based solutions to their most pressing problems. His most recent book, Rebooting Capitalism: How We Can Forge a Society That Works for Everyone, describes how capitalism in the U.S became corrupted by corporations’ singular focus on profit maximization. It provides a guide to how we can create a social movement to evolve a more nurturing society.