Artabana is a federation of small groups of like-minded people who plan and save for their healthcare, and share a pooled emergency fund. The members will basically Share the Risk of Provisioning, especially funding for health care as provided by public and private services. The strength of Artabana is that people take responsibility for themselves and others into their own hands, via a kind of peer-governed small group healt-insurance, without being a real Health Insurance! Artabana is based on a commitment to take personal responsibility for our own health care needs. The three pillar of Artabana are commitments to working as a community where trust, solidarity and responsibility are the foundations of mutual support. . Contrasting with the profit-making regular insurance industry, Artabana helps to build a strong community by fostering care, generosity and accountability.
Taking self-responsibility and being proactive about our own health, also building community trust, are strategies that may actually lead to improved health and wellbeing, and this then tends to reduce the cost of claims. Ula Musik and Jane Jane Reid Bradshaw, Artabana Tasmania
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# Aspirational Goals
Artabana's aim is to promote variety with respect to approaches for treating disease and illness. Accordingly, they support both alternative and conventional medicine approaches.
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# Legal Status & Location
Switzerland, Germany, Australia, transnational. The legal status in Germany is "eingetragener Verein"
# When did they start?
1987 in Switzerland, it has been popular in Anthroposophical and Steiner communities. The system spread rapidly through Germany. In Australia there is great interest in Artabana to pay for medical services that are not covered by Medicare. In 2016 the founding group in Hobart, Tasmania, began to work.
# How do they work and how are they financed?
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Artabana consists of small local groups, that form a national network and federate transnationally. About 5 to 10 people - the ideal group size - Ritualize Togetherness. They meet monthly, join in social activities together and build trust. Applicants must attend at least 3 meetings before they may be accepted to a group, as it takes time to establish if the individuals are the right fit for the group. It is a way to Set Semi-Permeable Boundaries. If a group grows too big for all the members to properly know eachother, it can split. (Emulate & Then Federate).
Each member determines their own contribution rate based on their estimated personal yearly health budget, they Contribute Freely. Contributions vary from one person to another according to health needs and individual means, although the group might decide on a minimum payment such as $80 per month, to Practice Gentle Reciprocity. However, in Germany, there have also been group members who did not pay any contribution because they couldn't. Something that would be hardly possible in a public or private health care fund.
Member contributions received by the group are split 70:30, with 30% banked in an Emergency Fund. The 70% portion of a member’s monthly contribution accumulates in their General Fund and is available to her/him for spending at any time on health and wellbeing according to personal choice. This may include medical consultations, procedures, massage, wheelchair, dental work, spectacles and so on.
In Artabana, healthcare is interpreted quite broadly and the funds may be used for more preventative health strategies, even as diverse as visiting a retreat or buying a piano, if this is deemed important for health. Members Trust Situated Knowing and Respect Human Dimensions.
Withdrawals are made through the treasurer by showing receipts but each member has autonomy and privacy for the decision.
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# Which Core Dimensions of Commoning are enacted?
Artabana's philosophy and practice is an example of how a transnational netowork can enact all social patterns of commoning:
- Cultivate Shared Purpose & Values - Strengthen the Nested-I - Deepen Communion with Nature - Preserve Relationships in Addressing Conflicts - Reflect on Your Peer-Governance
# Peer-Governance in the Commons
Each group has a standard framework but sometimes with local differences. Documents and official procedures such as the Contribution Promise are usually adopted from the core organisation. A solicitor wrote up statutes for the Tasmanian group, and new Australian groups can probably start with the same documents while obtaining specific legal advice to adapt for different states. Groups are incorporated organisations managed by voluntary positions including president, secretary and treasurer. Each group administers its own accounts and may be audited. (A member of the Hobart group has developed software for this.) New member applications and emergency claims are decided at a local group meeting, for example by consensus. Generally an annual membership fee of $50 is collected to cover the cost of paperwork, website and so on. Artabana is not a tax-deductible health fund and it is not regarded as health insurance by Medicare.
If any group member suffers a health emergency costing more than remains in the patient’s own General Fund, then they may receive financial assistance drawn from - the local group’s Emergency Fund comprising the pooled 30% of members’ contributions - sometimes private donations (gifts) from other members of the group - financial support from other Artabana groups.
- Keep Commons & Commerce Distinct - Declare Shared Purpose & Values - Assure Commoners' Consent in Decisionmaking - Relationalize Property - Honor Transparency in a Sphere of Trust. Invoices from physicians, practitioners, hospitals and related providers are accessible to all members for review, ensuring responsible use of healthcare services. Financial arrangements with health care service providers are entered into both on the basis of industry fee schedules and without relation to such schedules, as permitted by applicable law.
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- [[Share Knowledge Often & Widely]. - Finance Commons Provisioning. members individually make regular or one-time binding contributions by way of gifting in amounts reflecting their own priorities, the significance they attach to health and the means and resources available to them. Gifts go to the direct benefit of those in need, or are deposited to the society's solidarity fund. Members are free to structure financial arrangements with healthcare practitioners or practices at their own discretion.- Self-Monitor & Apply Graduated Sanctions
# How does Provisioning through commons occur?
Healthcare is not a cookie-cutter affair.
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no need for group approval of General Fund withdrawals, only for the Emergency Fund.
- Honor Care & Decommodified Work. Assistance is not only monetary but also in the form of visits, transport and other support. These are groups whose members have come to really care about eachother. Contrasting with conventional insurance, claimants tend to be respectfully modest in accepting help and they genuinely try to keep their claims to a minimum. - Pool & Share - Pool, Cap & Divide up - Pool, Cap & Mutualize - Trade with Price-Sovereignty - Use Convivial Tools - Rely on Distributed Structures - Produce Cosmo-Locally - Creatively Adapt & Renew
ontological ground and political culture
# Inner Kernel
- Epistemology - Ubuntu-Rationality. - Relational categories. name them
Proceed the same way selecting from the following dimensions
- Beat the Bounds of Capitalocentrism - [Protect & Extend Value Sovereignty] - Emulate & Then Federate - Strengthen Commons Public Circuits # State Functions for Commoning - Use or Establish Discrimination-Free Infrastructures - Provide Mediation & Support if Needed
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# Realms of Commoning
delete those which don't apply; if you are missing a top-level-tag; put a note in [Notes to Silke]
Air&Atmosphere, Art&Culture, Communication, Democratic Innovation, Energy, Fisheries, Food, Forests, Health, Housing, Knowledge, Land, Learning, Mobility, Spirit&Well Being, Spaces for Commoning
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# Sources
Artabana in Australia, by alisphere, html 
# See also
add closely related pages