Posted on 03/29/2017 11:14:32 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Was President Trump’s first attempt at getting a healthcare bill a failure?
Your answer to that question probably depends on whether you are a goals-thinker or a systems-thinker.
If you see the world in terms of goals, you would say the healthcare bill did not get enough votes on the first try, and therefore it is clearly a Trump/Ryan failure.
But if you see the world in terms of systems, things look a lot better. I talk about the advantages of systems over goals in my book. The quick summary is that a system is something you do on a regular basis that improves your odds of success in a non-specific way. Systems-thinkers choose paths that allow them to come out ahead in the long run even if they appear to be “failing” along the way.
For example, if you are a founder of a startup that doesn’t work out, you usually end up with new skills. Maybe you also gain new contacts in the industry, more insight into the market, and that sort of thing. Those new assets make your odds of success on the next startup far better.
College students are systems-people. They go to class and study every day without knowing precisely where their careers will lead them. All they know is that a college degree gives them more options and better odds of success. That’s a good system.
I’ve blogged about my main system in life that involves building my Talent Stack. I figure out which skills I need to add to the ones I already have to make myself unique and valuable in the marketplace. For example, right now I’m building out my skillset for livestreaming over Periscope and YouTube. That skill goes well with my blogging. I don’t know exactly where that all ends up, but I know my options will increase with my Talent Stack.
With that bit of background on systems, let’s get back to healthcare. As a systems-thinker, I don’t see the first attempt at a GOP healthcare bill as a failure. I see it as part of Trump’s normal systems-thinking approach. The tell for a good system is that failure puts you AHEAD. And that’s exactly what happened.
By the way, I told you during the campaign that one of Trump’s signature moves is creating two ways to win and no way to lose. He did that again with healthcare. Here were his two ways to win:
1. Healthcare bill gets passed on the first try. Trump looks like an effective leader. The details of the bill get improved over time.
2. The healthcare bill does NOT pass on the first try. This softens up the far right by branding them villains. Now they have to compromise on the next bill or watch as centrist Democrats enter the conversation. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking on Obamacare, and the conditions for compromise are IMPROVING EVERY MINUTE. That’s what the Master Persuader tells us happens when you “walk away from the table” like you mean it. Trump just walked away from the table to go work on tax reform. If you watch his Twitter feed, you know he is winking at the public and telling us to stay tuned on healthcare.
Meanwhile, a fascinating thing is happening outside of government. Watch how many private citizens are looking into the details of healthcare reform and even proposing their own solutions on blogs and articles. The nation is engaged on the topic in a way that looks like a self-organizing system. All the public needs is some sort of common website that is designed to discuss the pros and cons of the various ideas in plain language so the best ones can bubble up to the top.
I’ve blogged before that the United States is no longer strictly a Republic. Social media creates a direct-democracy option in the sense that public opinion can be so strong that politicians have to bend to it. But social media only has power if it can focus on something specific. Until the public comes up with its own healthcare plan, social media is powerless.
But consider our unique situation. As far as we citizens can tell, Congress is no longer functional for any issue that has as many lobbyists as the healthcare topic. They can’t get it done on their own. Too many industry-created roadblocks.
Social media, and the weight of public opinion, could overcome any roadblocks in Congress by making it impossible for politicians to get reelected if they ignore the public’s preferred plan. But the public has no preferred plan. There is only public confusion about the options.
As a citizen, I call upon the Trump administration to help the public create a system to sort out the best healthcare options for the country, free from the pressure of lobbyists. Just tell us which website to look at, and we’ll do the rest. When we (collectively) have a good set of proposals (let’s say three different plans), Congress can turn them into bills and vote. If the public takes sides with one of the bills, that helps to neuter the lobbyists. Lobbyists know politicians need to get reelected. And that means lobbyists are helpless when the public and the politicians are on the same side.
I don’t like living in the “can’t do” country. If Congress can’t get healthcare fixed, the public appears ready and willing to fill the gap. All we need is a preferred website to focus that energy.
Better yet, let’s see the debate on healthcare as a limited engagement reality TV show. Bring on the experts on each mini-topic (such as selling insurance across state lines) and have them try to convince a panel of business-expert judges that their plan is the best.
I’d watch it.
I’m hip. Stuff Congress. They ain’t looking out for MY best interest !
For Scott Adams:
OK smarty pants, YOU build the website and sponsor the TV show. You don’t have to wait for Trump to make your dream a reality.
From the Liberty Fund Library is "A Plea for Liberty: An Argument Against Socialism and Socialistic Legislation," edited by Thomas Mackay (1849 - 1912), Chapter 1, excerpted final paragraphs from Edward Stanley Robertson's essay, "The Impracticability of Socialism":
"I have suggested that the scheme of Socialism is wholly incomplete unless it includes a power of restraining the increase of population, which power is so unwelcome to Englishmen that the very mention of it seems to require an apology. I have showed that in France, where restraints on multiplication have been adopted into the popular code of morals, there is discontent on the one hand at the slow rate of increase, while on the other, there is still a 'proletariat,' and Socialism is still a power in politics.
I.44
"I have put the question, how Socialism would treat the residuum of the working class and of all classes—the class, not specially vicious, nor even necessarily idle, but below the average in power of will and in steadiness of purpose. I have intimated that such persons, if they belong to the upper or middle classes, are kept straight by the fear of falling out of class, and in the working class by positive fear of want. But since Socialism purposes to eliminate the fear of want, and since under Socialism the hierarchy of classes will either not exist at all or be wholly transformed, there remains for such persons no motive at all except physical coercion. Are we to imprison or flog all the 'ne'er-do-wells'?
I.45
"I began this paper by pointing out that there are inequalities and anomalies in the material world, some of which, like the obliquity of the ecliptic and the consequent inequality of the day's length, cannot be redressed at all. Others, like the caprices of sunshine and rainfall in different climates, can be mitigated, but must on the whole be endured. I am very far from asserting that the inequalities and anomalies of human society are strictly parallel with those of material nature. I fully admit that we are under an obligation to control nature so far as we can. But I think I have shown that the Socialist scheme cannot be relied upon to control nature, because it refuses to obey her. Socialism attempts to vanquish nature by a front attack. Individualism, on the contrary, is the recognition, in social politics, that nature has a beneficent as well as a malignant side. The struggle for life provides for the various wants of the human race, in somewhat the same way as the climatic struggle of the elements provides for vegetable and animal life—imperfectly, that is, and in a manner strongly marked by inequalities and anomalies. By taking advantage of prevalent tendencies, it is possible to mitigate these anomalies and inequalities, but all experience shows that it is impossible to do away with them. All history, moreover, is the record of the triumph of Individualism over something which was virtually Socialism or Collectivism, though not called by that name. In early days, and even at this day under archaic civilisations, the note of social life is the absence of freedom. But under every progressive civilisation, freedom has made decisive strides—broadened down, as the poet says, from precedent to precedent. And it has been rightly and naturally so.
I.46
"Freedom is the most valuable of all human possessions, next after life itself. It is more valuable, in a manner, than even health. No human agency can secure health; but good laws, justly administered, can and do secure freedom. Freedom, indeed, is almost the only thing that law can secure. Law cannot secure equality, nor can it secure prosperity. In the direction of equality, all that law can do is to secure fair play, which is equality of rights but is not equality of conditions. In the direction of prosperity, all that law can do is to keep the road open. That is the Quintessence of Individualism, and it may fairly challenge comparison with that Quintessence of Socialism we have been discussing. Socialism, disguise it how we may, is the negation of Freedom. That it is so, and that it is also a scheme not capable of producing even material comfort in exchange for the abnegations of Freedom, I think the foregoing considerations amply prove." EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON
From the Liberty Fund Library edited by Thomas Mackay (1849 - 1912), Chapter 1, excerpted final paragraphs from Edward Stanley Robertson's essay, "The Impracticability of Socialism":
"I have suggested that the scheme of Socialism is wholly incomplete unless it includes a power of restraining the increase of population, which power is so unwelcome to Englishmen that the very mention of it seems to require an apology. I have showed that in France, where restraints on multiplication have been adopted into the popular code of morals, there is discontent on the one hand at the slow rate of increase, while on the other, there is still a 'proletariat,' and Socialism is still a power in politics.
I.44
"I have put the question, how Socialism would treat the residuum of the working class and of all classes—the class, not specially vicious, nor even necessarily idle, but below the average in power of will and in steadiness of purpose. I have intimated that such persons, if they belong to the upper or middle classes, are kept straight by the fear of falling out of class, and in the working class by positive fear of want. But since Socialism purposes to eliminate the fear of want, and since under Socialism the hierarchy of classes will either not exist at all or be wholly transformed, there remains for such persons no motive at all except physical coercion. Are we to imprison or flog all the 'ne'er-do-wells'?
I.45
"I began this paper by pointing out that there are inequalities and anomalies in the material world, some of which, like the obliquity of the ecliptic and the consequent inequality of the day's length, cannot be redressed at all. Others, like the caprices of sunshine and rainfall in different climates, can be mitigated, but must on the whole be endured. I am very far from asserting that the inequalities and anomalies of human society are strictly parallel with those of material nature. I fully admit that we are under an obligation to control nature so far as we can. But I think I have shown that the Socialist scheme cannot be relied upon to control nature, because it refuses to obey her. Socialism attempts to vanquish nature by a front attack. Individualism, on the contrary, is the recognition, in social politics, that nature has a beneficent as well as a malignant side. The struggle for life provides for the various wants of the human race, in somewhat the same way as the climatic struggle of the elements provides for vegetable and animal life—imperfectly, that is, and in a manner strongly marked by inequalities and anomalies. By taking advantage of prevalent tendencies, it is possible to mitigate these anomalies and inequalities, but all experience shows that it is impossible to do away with them. All history, moreover, is the record of the triumph of Individualism over something which was virtually Socialism or Collectivism, though not called by that name. In early days, and even at this day under archaic civilisations, the note of social life is the absence of freedom. But under every progressive civilisation, freedom has made decisive strides—broadened down, as the poet says, from precedent to precedent. And it has been rightly and naturally so.
I.46
"Freedom is the most valuable of all human possessions, next after life itself. It is more valuable, in a manner, than even health. No human agency can secure health; but good laws, justly administered, can and do secure freedom. Freedom, indeed, is almost the only thing that law can secure. Law cannot secure equality, nor can it secure prosperity. In the direction of equality, all that law can do is to secure fair play, which is equality of rights but is not equality of conditions. In the direction of prosperity, all that law can do is to keep the road open. That is the Quintessence of Individualism, and it may fairly challenge comparison with that Quintessence of Socialism we have been discussing. Socialism, disguise it how we may, is the negation of Freedom. That it is so, and that it is also a scheme not capable of producing even material comfort in exchange for the abnegations of Freedom, I think the foregoing considerations amply prove." EDWARD STANLEY ROBERTSON
Sorry for the duplication. Trying to correct link—wound up using sledgehammer to kill a flea.
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