Elections: A Dose of Common Sense!
Mar 9, 2010
“In an abundance of counselors there is much wisdom.” One of King Solomon’s much loved proverbs.
It was Winston Churchill who once, in commenting on democracy, noted that “the strongest argument against democracy is spending 5 minutes with the average voter.” I think that Massachusetts voters may have just proved him wrong!
Whenever the power elite lose touch with common sense, the electorate has a way of bringing them back to their senses. One of the things that I admire about the American political system is that over the 22 years that I have lived in this country, I have seen it swing to the right, and to the left, and now back again. We really are a pretty middle of the road country. We want to be compassionate to the poor and those less fortunate than ourselves, but we also want to reward hard work and excellence. We care about Haiti, but we don’t want our money ending up in gangsters’ hands or going into a bottomless pit of corrupt government. We want to treat illegal immigrants right, because we know they do handle a lot of jobs that no-one else wants. But we don’t want them to get more rights than citizens, and we don’t want them jumping the queue before legal immigrants. Most of us hate any thought of torture, but we recognize that to Mirandize someone as they are brought off a plane that they have just tied to blow out of the sky may be taking things too far!
Healthcare reform fits into these categories. We don’t have to have either a degree in economics (which I don’t have) or a degree in medicine (which I do have) to have common sense ideas that would garner support on both sides of the aisle. Well, maybe not in Congress, but at least on the street! And that is what Scott Brown has just shown us. I just hope that he can keep his ear to the ground once he has moved to Washington!
Here are a few ideas that I take to be just plain common sense, but you are welcome to disagree with me.
- Insurance companies insure against risk. There is no reason that a healthy twenty year old should have to pay the same health insurance rate as the deliberately unhealthy twenty year old, let alone match the premium of the still chain smoking 50 year old. But this does not mean that we shouldn’t have compassion on the 20 year old, which through no fault of his/her own has massive medical problems. A state risk pool, where we all stand through our taxes with those less fortunate than ourselves can be a good middle ground between personal responsibility and the general acceptance that many of us want to help in no fault situations.
- Doctors make mistakes. I should know, I have made my own. Although there may be huge differences between negligence and carelessness as compared to unforeseen outcome or inevitable morbidity of any procedure, we all want to see the patient taken care of. No fault insurance, much like “no fault insurance in the auto industry” can be one way of doing this. Transparency in outcomes between doctors will also help to clarify where you are paying a premium for excellence, and where you are being charged over the top for mediocre results. Let’s at least discuss malpractice reform. It makes little sense to be paying an extra 20% on everything medical because of the legal risks inherent in any medical procedure.
- Competition works. So why do we exclude it in so much of the medical market place. If doctors want to risk their own money and reputations in setting up specialty hospitals, why shouldn’t they? Why do you need a certificate of need for a hospital but not for a garage? If McDonald’s wants to take on Starbucks, why shouldn’t it? May the best man win! I suspect that much the same could be said for schools. Even for medical schools!
Many issues in life and in healthcare reform do not have simple answers. But they often have common sense middle ground on which many of us can agree. It is the nature of politics to think we can only be “one or the other.” But in business, usually the best answer is “both and.”
Lori Borgman is credited with writing the essay, “The Death of Common Sense.” As she put it so well, “Rules and regulations and petty, frivolous lawsuits held no power over Common Sense. A most reliable sage, he was credited with cultivating the ability to know when to come in out of the rain, the discovery that the early bird gets the worm and how to take the bitter with the sweet.
“C.S. also developed sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn), reliable parenting strategies (the adult is in charge, not the kid) and prudent dietary plans (offset eggs and bacon with a little fiber and orange juice).” (See this link for the full article.)
We would all do well to listen to C.S. again. The marvelous thing about common sense is that common things do occur commonly, as our medical instructors used to drum into us at medical school. In spite of Churchill’s comments, maybe the wisdom of the many is a great antidote to the arrogance of the few.
