The health care debate, I suppose I should type "debate", is rife with examples of shoddy reasoning. Part of this is due to something I wish Obama would do: address the American people and describe his vision in clear terms. He is not writing whatever bill is being written, his leadership style is not one of emphasizing details, but articulating goals.
He needs to get up and say "Here are my three goals for healthcare" or two or four, but I believe in the magic of three. Three goals are easy to remember, they can balance each other, they can be measure against, they can be specific and unambiguous enough that action can be taken, but not so detailed that some trivia might derail them.
Ronald Reagan was good at this. He often repeated his goals: reduce taxes to improve the economy, defeat Communism worldwide, and reduce the size of government. When he spoke like this then we had something to argue against. You could argue against his goals, or you could argue against his policies and whether they would achieve his goals, and people did plenty of both. But the debate was understandable.
With healthcare the debate seems stuck on unarguable concepts.
First, do we or do we not have the best health care in the world? Well, what do we mean by "best"? What are the goals of a national health care system? This is what Obama needs to talk to.
Is the goal that everyone has access to health care? Is the goal that we have the highest life expectancy and the lowest infant mortality? Is the goal that we reduce the cost of life-style choice health problems caused by smoking and obesity? Is the goal that everyone gets free checkups every year? Is the goal to reduce the amount of money spent on health care as a nation? Don't assume that the meaning of "best" is understood by everyone.
Let the opponents of reform also state their fears, not fears of death panels and abstract concepts like "government takeover of everything." Don't convolve the skill of our doctors and nurses to take care of us with the system that actually pays for all of it. The reform is not about the FDA and approving drugs and procedures, it is an economic issue.
Health care costs are going up. Why? What are the factors? Do we care? What should the American budget for health care be? We spend tons of money on crap, why shouldn't health care be a bigger portion than it is now? In the current economic downturn we have heard of nurses getting laid off. Does that make sense? Shouldn't we have more nurses? Shouldn't the system should be able to provide at least comfortable living for all health care workers? As we get older as a nation don't we need more doctors and nurses?
Let's get the debate on issues of substance, and let's start with Obama laying out his three goals.
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I completely agree with you here, Papa Thor. I think the reason the administration has had little success in making headway is because there is no specific direction as to what they really want to fix. We all know things are broken but until we know what we are trying to accomplish there's no way we can fix it.
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