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Let it never be said that I don’t try to be helpful.
After giving this whole thing careful thought, I think that the easiest way that President Obama could get out of this whole mess about health care is to propose a unique solution. But not just any solution, but a few solutions—and the way that he could present it would make even the conservative stand up and take notice.
It’s time for a Field Trial
When a software company gets ready to start selling software, one of the things that it does it take the software that it has designed and written and put it in the field to see how well it does in real world scenarios. Usually the bugs that were not caught in the quality assurance process will be brought light quickly as the software is stress tested in a live environment.
The United States Government was constructed in such a way to allow for Field Trialing of different policy ideas—in the states. Yes, there are multiple states in this Union for the precise reason that different states may contain1 people that have different values or principles. Some states have an income tax, some high sales taxes, etc., so why not propose something that would have the Federal Government sponsor multiple different states having separate health plans so that we can come up with best of breed.
Would You Buy Untested Software?
Before most pieces of software get to you they have been tried by many different individuals, so why is is that the government should take on such huge policy changing issues without some way to test the scenarios and get the kinks worked out before foisting their plan on the entire country.
I mean, as a developer, I can tell you that the first few times that I’ve launched a software product I was pretty sure I’d gotten a lot of it right, only to find out in Field Trial that it wasn’t, people weren’t using it the way that I had intended, and that things were breaking.
I’ve come to learn that it’s a sign of arrogance to expect perfection in these kinds of things, so when it comes to dealing with our health and our health insurance system, why take that kind of chance?
The only reason that I can think of is arrogance—the refusal to see any other possible solution than the one that you believe in and that you have to have it now rather than lay the groundwork for something that will last.
So, what’ll it be, President Obama? This is a critical moment in your Presidency. Will you take the arrogant and easy way out, or will you really try to do what’s best for the country?
- I know, not a big chance, right? [↩]
