ok watching c-span for a while last night. damn, people are stubborn.
obama's plan for health care is pretty much centrist in my opinion, tho people on either side will vehemently argue that it's too far left/right. those on the right would probably argue that it's extreme left, tho that's not exactly accurate.
they had an economist from georgetown university talk to congress about the proposed bill.
the bill indends to provide another competitor into the health insurance market, in the hopes that it will be more cost efficient and cover more people than other providers.
she did really well in trying to confront arguments from both sides. the big, main, and valid argument against the bill from the right is that, while the health care plan intends to merely to be a competitor, it should run by the same rules as the other companies, including not being artificially supported by taxpayer funds, and also be allowed to fail should it not be able to truly compete with existing health insurance. i agree with this in principle, and disagree with those on the far left who would propose to do away with the broken insurance system itself and manage the system entirely from the government's side. obama and the georgetown professor both advocate the market for innovation in terms of efficiency.
but the current system is broken. you can't just leave it alone, because the system is currently stuck in a rut.
time to get geeky-abstract.
in computer science, there's this concept called the "greedy algorithm." in the greedy alogrithm, you always take the best local path without looking ahead. you can wiki it if you're curious.
imagine you're walking down the Yellow Brick Road to Oz. but you come across a fork in the road. both look equally well, but the one on the left is nice and shady and the one on the right is sunny and hot with no shady spots in sight. you decide to take it easy and go left.
a while later, you come across a fork where the left is shady and the right is sunny. you go left again.
you come across a fork with the same setup. if you're using the greedy algorithm, you're going to turn left again. but if you're being a human being about this, you've realized you've been going in circles, and you'll turn right.
you bite the bullet and take the sunny path, because you know that's the one that will take you to Oz.
This is where so much of our economy is right now. it's stuck in sub-optimal ruts and either going in circles or downward spirals. and it's cause individuals choose big short-term gains over long-term financial health.
this is true of the financial state of our health care system. too much money is being spent on administration, and not enough on actual physicians and buildings. we shouldn't be paying for insurance. we should be paying for health care. and the system is set up for the former, rather than the latter. the obama health plan will add a new, altruistic competitior in the market that would force the existing companies to adjust... or fail. when the market adjusts... well then maybe the government plan won't be necessary anymore, and it should be allowed to recede or fail.
so yes. the market will find the optimal solution. but it needs a nudge in the right direction. we need another factor that will make them choose the sunny path that will lead us to Oz.
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