Lassoism Meets Reality
Ted Lasso said we “gotta remember, your body is like day-old rice. If it ain’t warmed up properly, something real bad could happen.”
Insurers like New Mexico’s Blue Cross Blue Shield plan are seeing value in warming up kids, giving a grant to the Play Sharity Foundation, which helps low-income families create active play learning environments using free bikes and scooters. If you’re going to invest in social determinants of health like this, a tip – these insurers have historically used grant funding to allocate millions a year through their foundations to support 10-20 non-profits focused on social risk or prevention like this.
The kids in my gym class need this sort of support and physical education, but it goes deeper. They don’t have much access to physicians and nurses who look like them and know their culture, much less a grocery store in their neighborhood with a half-decent selection of fresh fruit and veggies. Asaya, 11, says “we usually just go to the hospital if one of us is sick” but “none of the doctors are black.” Tu, whose family migrated from refugee camps in war-torn Myanmar, says her aunt takes her to a place but no one speaks her language or understands her culture and the breathing issues they suffer from, exacerbated by not understanding how to use the inhaler properly. These are difficult situations, but the healthcare community is starting to figure out ways to tailor services. Spora Health is a small telemedicine platform in Texas and Tennessee specifically for people of color. It just started collaborating with a health insurer for self-employed people and their families. The insurer, Decent, will help its members select a Spora provider for primary care – one that looks like them and understands their situation, inequities. I hear about these models and it’s encouraging, but telemedicine is only one component. These families and kids need more of an overarching social service support “home” than a medical home. Bifurcating the two is a mistake. On Wednesday the kids named their volleyball teams before playing. “What’s your team’s name?” I asked Jala….“P.O.C.” she said proudly.