My Vote for Health Care Dictator: David Goldhill

Best article I've read on diagnosing the problem with health care and insurance.

His insight: until we make the individual patient the consumer as opposed to the insurance company standing in for the consumer, no meaningful progress will be made on reducing the cost of healthcare in the US.

The solution: make individuals responsible for their own tax-free health care accounts where they educate themselves and prudently shop for value when selecting doctors, hospitals and procedures. Relegate health insurance to catastrophic problems, not body maintenance. Make the costs of everything transparent, in just the same way as shopping for a hotel room or buying a computer

It's only by putting the consumer in control that we can hope to eliminate the vortices of self-interest that make up the current system.

I believe the Obama administration will fail to make a meaningful change in our healthcare program. For all the brains in this administration, there is no thought leadership on how to change the system, only a wish list of end goals, such as "reduce long term health care costs..."

Hopefully in the next ten years we'll get a chief executive that exploits the power of the office (in the same way that G. W. Bush did for his Iraq project), to base reform on a fundamental hypothesis on what is wrong, like the ones Goldhill articulates. Until then I'm tuning out this thread, as I believe most Americans will lose interest, because the Obama administration is not using a powerful lever to move this obstacle.

Fight Club #5: Is Life too Short for Physics?

Reading Gleick's Genius: the Life and Science of Richard Feynman was particularly successful for FC because it produced some of the best fights so far. The arguments weren't about politics, or economic theories, but instead got to the heart of why we do Fight Club to begin with.

At the center of the controversy is the fact that most readers found the physics in the book to be impossible to follow, and they faulted the author for either 1) including so much physics to begin with, or 2) not making it more understandable to the lay person. In other words, folks found the "Science of RF" to be confusing and frustrating.

On the other hand the book had plenty of rich narratives about the "Life of RF." His first marriage showed him as the romantic ideal worthy of Chretien de Troyes. His first wife is already wasting away to TB at the time he marries her, and he never leaves her side. Later he completely transforms into roue, fooling around with his grad students wives. In short, everyone found the "Life of RF" an engaging story of a complex man.

So was it worth having to slog through the physics? Could that have been edited out? Do we really want to read books for Fight Club that are so difficult? What kind of books do we want to for Fight Club anyway? Why are we here to begin with?

In defense of the book: the reader is made to feel the sense of fumbling around in the dark that the scientist feels when confronting the mysteries and puzzles of nature. Moreover, the curiosity and desire to learn and independently solve the puzzles were clear and aspiration themes of Feynman's life to the end. Our arguments about the book quickly became self-reflective.

Over dinner, to a man, most expressed the feeling that now was a time in their lives where they felt the greatest desire to learn. Remarkable mostly because around the table sits a group a particularly successful men, already midway through life.

For me, Dick Feynman has a permanent room in my head; I want to be like Feynman.