A Historic Opportunity for Healthcare
I have felt with increasing conviction over the last few months that whoever takes the Oval Office next January will have an array of historic opportunities before him, and one of those opportunities is to foment a true, lasting, and seismic re-engineering of American Healthcare.
While I was pleased to hear at least one of the two Presidential candidates target complete energy independence in 10 years as one of those historic opportunity/goals, in my view he should have used the term "Moon Shot" to underscore the dedication it will take. I was also appalled by two things: The number of pundits and politicos who immediately demanded to know all the particulars through which energy independence could be achieved, and the fact that the incredibly important national goal of re-engineering healthcare (re-engineering, not just reforming) was not included. Had it been, I have no doubt that the same pundits who shot at the lack of an intricate blueprint for energy independence would have opened fire on the healthcare overhaul on same basis: Show us all of the details, otherwise it can't be done.
But wait just a darn minute here! When John Kennedy launched us to the moon with his hip-shot 1962 speech, he not only didn't have all of the details on how we were going to do it, no one did! There may have been a few optimists at NASA who truly thought it could be done within such a time frame, but they were too stunned and in the minority to speak up. The reality was that neither we nor JFK knew how to do it, merely that we had locked onto the vision and we were determined to achieve it. That meant that the first thing that had to go was the negative assumptions.
The concept of re-engineering healthcare is difficult for the American public to understand, and very difficult for the business and medical community to embrace because it requires upending so many areas of medical practice and the business of running it. In other words, it's far more than just extending universal coverage. It will also require solving the nursing crisis (which is multifaceted), dealing with massive physician discontent, disconnecting the medical system from a failed malpractice lawsuit system, finding a sane way to fund the interests of keeping us healthy rather than funding by services regardless of outcome, and much more.
It's also difficult to recognize success. With JFK's moonshot it was easy: We either got there and came back safely or we didn't. The difficulty of measuring success in healthcare reinvention, because it is devilishly difficult, invites negative conclusions, which, in turn, invite a defeatist philosophy even before the starting gates are opened. And quite frankly, that's unAmerican.
Can the fact that we don't have an engineering blueprint to healthcare reinvention justify not making Healthcare Re-engineering a primary, moonshot-level priority within ten years? Not if we remember who we are as a people, and not if we want to continue that legacy.
In brief, we Americans respond better to emergencies than we do to philosophical and well thought out imperatives for change. Tell us our house should be re-engineered for greater resistance to hurricanes and as a society we tend to yawn. Tell us we're facing a category 5 hurricane in three days and we can move heaven and earth to shore up what we have. What's required to bridge that motivational gap is what JFK did in 1962: Challenge us with the impossible and refuse to accept the idea that impossible is a concept that limits us.
Whether Barack Obama or John McCain takes the oath of office in January, we need the words and the concept of a MoonShot mentality to launch us on energy independence in ten years AND on finishing a complete re-engineering of healthcare in the same period of time. Wasn't it Robert Browning who said, "Ah, but a man's (and woman's) reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"
Take a few moments and look at Modern Healthcare's side-by-side presentation of what both candidates say they want for reinventing healthcare, and read the details carefully. Then, identify the gaps in both and email the campaigns to help educate them. (See http://www.modernhealthcare.com/ ). But if you do, PLEASE push them hard to use the phrase, the concept, and the legacy of JFK's bold move in 1961 when he touched a blowtorch to the tail of a lazy giant.
JJN
