Many readers know that I have become a fan of Alan M. Webber, author of 52 Rules of Thumb. He has a very important piece in today’s Huffington Post – Health Care Reality: Change is a Math Formula
Rule #5 – Change is a math formula–C=Co(SQ)>R(C). The formula reads: Change happens when the cost of the status quo is greater than the risk of change. The way to win the debate on health care reform is to drive up the perceived cost of the status quo.
Many readers and fellow bloggers are surprised that I favor the admittedly flawed health care reform legislation. I would write a significantly different bill. But the bill has enough good to overcome the bad, because the status quo is really worse.
As long as the debate focuses on the perceived risk of change, change loses. For change to win, every answer to every question about health care has to begin with a precise calculation of the high cost of the status quo.
Please read the article. I agree with his thinking.
I do not agree with all the proposed solutions, but the status quo really is worse.
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so the details of the proposed “change” don’t even matter? If the status quo is bad, anything new is better?
come on, we can be a little more sophisticated than this.
there is good change, there is bad change, and there is everything inbetween.
Thanks for the post–I appreciate the words of support! It seems to me that any reasonable discussion of health care reform begins, not with all the different programs/plans that could emerge from the Congress, but with the very real, unarguable costs of the status quo that we’re stuck with. And there, it’s hard to disagree: the system we have is in crisis. It is bankrupting individuals, over-taxing companies, squandering the country’s wealth–and worst of all–the outcomes aren’t even close to world-class health care. What we spend and what we get for what we spend don’t come close to matching up.
Does that mean that any alternative is automatically good? No. But don’t oppose change simply because it is change or because it isn’t perfect. Measure every proposal against the status quo. If it is better than the status quo, then open your mind to the possibility that change, risky though it is, could result in better economic and human outcomes.
Worse than what ? How do you know what the outcome will be ?
Not sure what needs to be done but something has to happen or we will all be unable to afford health care. Maybe a start would be to take the write off for advertising from drug companies and we will get rid of the TV ads as well
Sparky Flavored Coffee Drinker
There is so much retorhic from both sides of this thing it is getting a bit crazy. I wish both sides would relax and really look at what is out there. We either come up with something or we are all sunk
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