Comments on: Why The Health Care Reform Debate Makes Me Sick http://recoveringengineer.com/resolving-conflict/why-the-health-care-reform-debate-makes-me-sick/ Reflect, Respect, Reengineer, and Reinvent Fri, 27 Aug 2010 09:51:23 +0000 hourly 1 By: Guy Harris http://recoveringengineer.com/resolving-conflict/why-the-health-care-reform-debate-makes-me-sick/comment-page-1/#comment-15 Guy Harris Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:47:16 +0000 http://recoveringengineer.com/?p=367#comment-15 Brian, First, thanks for sharing your viewpoint. I appreciate your time investment in this discussion. Thanks also, for making my point for me. Your statement "they mostly mean the way we pay for it" implies that we all have the same definition for what's wrong with the health care system. Maybe we do. Maybe we don't. You and I might <i>define the problem</i> in different terms. If we each try to argue our perspectives by offering solutions to the problem as we define it without first coming to a mutually agreeable definition of the problem, we will never reach a mutually agreeable solution to the problem. Personally, I don't think the conversation to define the root cause of <i>why</i> the health care system cost structure is so high has been held sufficiently. So, jumping to a discussion about how to pay for the high cost is a little premature. Is the current insurance payment system <i>part</i> of the problem? I would agree that it is. I just don't think that's the whole problem. The way we pay for the system is only one facet of what I see as a bigger issue. Again, I offer these observations from my perspective. As I said, I don't have the information at my disposal to make a fully informed decision about why the system cost as much as it does. I have opinions like everyone else, and until we have the conversation to get all of the perspectives on the table and out in the open, we cannot have a meaningful conflict resolution discussion. Anyway, I digress, because my main point here is not really about the health care system in the first place, it is about the manner in which the discussion proceeds. The conversation is not terribly civil. People cast aspersions at each other, attack the character of the other person, rigidly stake out positions, and seek to <i>win</i> rather than to <i>resolve</i>. To have a succesful resolution discussion, all parties need to stay focused on understanding, defining, and then solving the problem. Again, the progress of this debate in a political forum may be perfectly normal, useful, and workable tactics in that world. My main point with this post is merely to point out that those behaviors will not serve you well in personal or professional conflict resolution discussions. Brian,

First, thanks for sharing your viewpoint. I appreciate your time investment in this discussion.

Thanks also, for making my point for me. Your statement “they mostly mean the way we pay for it” implies that we all have the same definition for what’s wrong with the health care system. Maybe we do. Maybe we don’t. You and I might define the problem in different terms. If we each try to argue our perspectives by offering solutions to the problem as we define it without first coming to a mutually agreeable definition of the problem, we will never reach a mutually agreeable solution to the problem.

Personally, I don’t think the conversation to define the root cause of why the health care system cost structure is so high has been held sufficiently. So, jumping to a discussion about how to pay for the high cost is a little premature. Is the current insurance payment system part of the problem? I would agree that it is. I just don’t think that’s the whole problem. The way we pay for the system is only one facet of what I see as a bigger issue. Again, I offer these observations from my perspective. As I said, I don’t have the information at my disposal to make a fully informed decision about why the system cost as much as it does. I have opinions like everyone else, and until we have the conversation to get all of the perspectives on the table and out in the open, we cannot have a meaningful conflict resolution discussion.

Anyway, I digress, because my main point here is not really about the health care system in the first place, it is about the manner in which the discussion proceeds.

The conversation is not terribly civil. People cast aspersions at each other, attack the character of the other person, rigidly stake out positions, and seek to win rather than to resolve. To have a succesful resolution discussion, all parties need to stay focused on understanding, defining, and then solving the problem.

Again, the progress of this debate in a political forum may be perfectly normal, useful, and workable tactics in that world. My main point with this post is merely to point out that those behaviors will not serve you well in personal or professional conflict resolution discussions.

]]> By: Brian Rush http://recoveringengineer.com/resolving-conflict/why-the-health-care-reform-debate-makes-me-sick/comment-page-1/#comment-14 Brian Rush Sun, 28 Feb 2010 04:01:09 +0000 http://recoveringengineer.com/?p=367#comment-14 When people say "the system is broken," they mostly mean the way we pay for it, which implies the health INSURANCE system rather than the health CARE system. The U.S. has a great doctor/patient and nurse/patient ratio. We have top-flight, best-in-the-world hospitals. We have state-of-the-art medical technology available, IF a person can pay for it. There is no better place in the world to go for medical treatment, IF a person can pay for it, which is why we get bazillionaires from foreign countries coming here for medical treatments when they have serious illnesses. The only part of the U.S. health care system that's broken is the way we pay for it, which leaves too many people unable to pay for it, and too many others paying too much for it. That being the case, the argument you're presenting here seems a bit specious. There are parts of the problem that aren't addressed by the health care bills under consideration (most egregiously the ridiculous prices charged for pharmaceuticals), but all of the parts being addressed are parts of the problem, while the quality of care itself frankly isn't. When people say “the system is broken,” they mostly mean the way we pay for it, which implies the health INSURANCE system rather than the health CARE system. The U.S. has a great doctor/patient and nurse/patient ratio. We have top-flight, best-in-the-world hospitals. We have state-of-the-art medical technology available, IF a person can pay for it. There is no better place in the world to go for medical treatment, IF a person can pay for it, which is why we get bazillionaires from foreign countries coming here for medical treatments when they have serious illnesses. The only part of the U.S. health care system that’s broken is the way we pay for it, which leaves too many people unable to pay for it, and too many others paying too much for it.

That being the case, the argument you’re presenting here seems a bit specious. There are parts of the problem that aren’t addressed by the health care bills under consideration (most egregiously the ridiculous prices charged for pharmaceuticals), but all of the parts being addressed are parts of the problem, while the quality of care itself frankly isn’t.

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