Review Article

Toward a Sacred Economy of Care: Reimagining Healthcare through an Integrative Moral Lens

Authors: Julian Ungar-Sargon.

DOI: 10.33425/3065-5641.1017

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Abstract

The contemporary healthcare crisis in the United States represents not merely an economic or policy failure, but a profound philosophical disconnection between the sacred nature of healing and the transactional logic of modern medical economics. This article proposes a "Sacred Economy of Care"—a three-tiered healthcare model that reorients economic incentives around relational depth, spiritual wellness, and covenantal responsibility rather than procedural volume and profit maximization. Drawing from Jewish ethical tradition, narrative medicine, and critical economic theory [6,7,9], this framework challenges the commodification of healing while maintaining economic sustainability. The proposed model integrates universal essential access (Tier I), community-based relational care (Tier II), and spiritual-preventive incentivization (Tier III) within a morally coherent economic structure. This approach demands fundamental reforms in medical education, payment structures, and institutional governance to align healthcare economics with the sacred encounter between healer and patient.

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