A few weeks ago, I wrote a post titled Why You Shouldn't Take Conflict Resolution Lessons From Politicians. In that post, I listed a number of things common to the political process that are terrible examples of how to behave when you are really trying to solve a problem or resolve a conflict.
As I look at the health care reform debate, I see a number of these behaviors in the way the discussion(s) is (are) proceeding. And, frankly, it makes me sick.
I am not a doctor, pharmacist, attorney, drug company executive or any other person who has deep insights into the intricacies of our health care system. I am, though, a person who can observe the process and see how the current discussion has virtually no hope of arriving at a good conclusion.
Virtually all of the discussion that I have seen mentions or implies that the system itself is broken. Then, the debate turns to how we should redesign the way we pay for the broken system. Almost no substantive discussion about how to fix the system. Just discussions, arguments and rants about how to pay for it.
Excuse me! How does that make any sense at all?
Do I have an opinion about what needs to happen to make the system better. Well, of course I do, and that's not the point of this post.
The point of this post is to learn from the communication, conflict resolution, and problem solving failures present in this discussion.
Problem number one: Discussing solutions before reaching agreement on the definition of the problem.
If we disagree on the definition of the problem, we can never agree on the solution. When people jump to discussing solutions before they discuss their respective viewpoints about how to best define the problem, they lock themselves into a negative spiral of conversation that rarely, if ever, leads to resolution. It might lead to one party “beating” the other. It does not lead to resolution.
Problem number two: Discussing symptoms rather than root causes.
A former co-worker of mine once received a call from a family member for help with a leaking water heater. As my co-worker entered his family member's home, he found his brother-in-law frantically mopping water from the floor trying to stay ahead of the leaking water heater. My co-worker, also my friend, approached the scene and then reached over his brother-in-law's head to shut the supply valve on the water heater. Once the supply of water stopped, the leak slowed and they could clean-up the mess. My friend's brother-in-law was so focused on the symptom (water on the floor) that he didn't stop long enough to fix the root cause (water flowing through the water heater).
Failing to clearly identify root causes forces you to spend inordinate amounts of effort on “fixing” the symptoms rather than dealing with the real problem.
When you're trying your case in the court of public opinion, attempting to preserve your chances for re-election, or hoping for a powerful sound byte for the evening news; the tactics employed by politicians may be useful. Just don't use them in your personal or professional life. They are almost destined to fail.
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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.
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.