The medical system in the west is anchored in ‘hard science’. It is built upon a foundation that is necessarily ‘reductionist’. ‘Reductionism’ simply means looking at a piece of a system, rather than the whole. We can remove a heart and replace it. This treatment is ‘reductionist’. We can provide dialysis to enable necessary functions to occur bypassing dysfuntional systems. This is reductionist.

Western medicine as a whole has never aplogized for it’s ‘reductionism’. It has given rise to extraordinary understandings of our bodies and how they work. It has enabled development of technological aids that have incalculabe value.

Our brains are part of our bodies. Our brains are material and they are the primary materialist foundation for our experience. Technological aids designed to enhance brain functioning and or overide apparent dysfunction have value. Computer chips may soon permit blind people to see. Stem cell research is very close to ‘curing’ Parkinson’s disease.

However, the use of technological aids to enhance or overide what  is often ‘construed’ as ‘just brain dysfunction’ (mental and emotional difficulty) is a mine field peppered with questions about the ’science’, the philosophy and the socio-political implications.

This is the context within which HMO’s and PPO’s operate.