Or worse, the heartfelt beliefs of those around him.

Example.

Bush (protect the American people) + Advisers (democratize the Middle East) = Policy (protect the American people by democratizing the Middle Ease)

I think Bush came across as genuine for many because he believed most of what he was saying. He did though appear to lack the intellectual curiosity to dive into issues and explore the various facets. He was more apt to simply take things for what they appeared to be (or was told) and if he felt he was making the right decision he would be clear with this choice.

This works fine when everything is rosy, but I think proven to be dramatically insufficient when dealing with the complex problems that he was presented with. The world isn't black and white but they tried to make it out to be so as to be easier for the American people to swallow.

-spence

This raises the question...What the hell makes you think Obama won't fail? He should be poised to be the worst President ever by your logic.

And I agree 100% with your statement.

Not necessarily.

Take health care for instance. It's perhaps our biggest challenge and yet one where there's an abundance of cash flow. If I was a business person I'd treat the systemic issues with strategic solutions.

For instance we may be able to dramatically reduce costs through early detection, or achieve economies of scale by consolidating services. These solutions have proven difficult if not impossible to deploy with a hybrid free market system. Hell, we don't even let the Government negotiate discount rates for pharmaceuticals!

The counter argument of course is that it could limit choice, or create socialistic entitlements. But these are ideological issues that ignore a potential net gain to the system, and that could be a better use of the same taxpayer money.

A business person would ignore ideology at first and look for innovative solutions to the big problems, then use their ideology as guiding principals to stress test the actual solutions.

-spence

As long as the President, his wife and children have the same health insurance I get. No exceptions, otherwise I like my freedom to choose for my own children.

That's a good way to look at it. I'm not for a pure single payer system, but I also don't think what we have now is workable either. I think there's a solution where we have a limited single payer system to provide base coverage and people or companies can upgrade somewhat like they do with Medicare today.

The American people also need to stop subsidizing pharmaceuticals for the rest of the world. We're the only industrialized nation who allows price fixing.

-spence

Well Medicare is going bankrupt too. I would feel a little better if the Feds had just one program that had succeeded in it's intended purpose. This bunch that's in charge now, can't do anything right. Spend, spend, spend....

It will be very tough to make nationalized health care work. One possibility would be to do like the military, your initial visit would be to a nurse (corpsman) who would evaluate and treat you for minor issues and then refer you up to actual doctors for more serious things. This would make routine visits much cheaper as they could pay considerably less for the nurse compared to a doctor. Wait times would definately increase, just like all government services (DMV, DEM, of Post Office). It is doable, I lived in Japan for 8 years and wife received National insurance from Japan and payed a 500 yen ($5.00) co-pay each visit. It seemed to be pretty efficient. All employers are required to pay for health insurance and if not employed you are required to sign up for national insurance (it was pretty cheap).

just a few leftist thoughts from a right leaning guy.......

If we can use the good from both sides without bringing the garbage from both sides, this country could possibly pull this off. I don't hold out much faith in our system though,,, it will end up with a hundred or more added earmarks for various senators from both parties.

I don't think Medicare is by any means perfect, and as for a program, believe it or not Social Security isn't all that terrible and had the Government not raided the SS funds to pay for other bills it wouldn't be nearly the issue that it is.

-spence

A lot of hospitals already employ this regardless of your insurance. I've been to Charlton in Fall River several times and they always do this at the walk in.

Ultimately it doesn't make things cheaper for me, but I would note that they run a very efficient business and have excellent turn around time for minor issues, even with x-rays.

In the end it probably has more to do with great management.

-spence