1) When the music industry needed reform, did we expect SonyBMG or Warner Music to reform it? Right. It took Apple to create itunes and the ipod to do that.
2) Way back when we were dealing with a ridiculously expensive book distribution system, in which authors got next to nothing, did we ask Random House or Simon & Schuster to reform the system? Correct again. Amazon created itself without asking permission from the Book Politburo.
3) Did you want verizon and at&t to provide an excellent cell phone? Go to the head of the class! Apple again, and BlackBerry just did it.
4) One more. You wanted to reform network TV? Did we ask GE/NBC, Disney/ABC or Viacom/CBS to start the revolution? Tivo to the rescue, thanks.
5) But yet, yet, if we really do want healthcare reform, why would we go to Congress to get it done. Congress is the great teacher for the status quo loving industries above, not to mention Detroit. Okay let's throw in Wall St. too. We've made this point before: asking Congress to reform anything is like asking the Madame to run the Vice Squad. It doesn't matter if you a blue or red; this is true for all.
6) We have placed healthcare reform in the hands of one Max Baucus, who represents a state with 12 inhabitants, none of whom, it would seem, have ever been to a doctor! With all due respect to Sen. Baucus and his off the rack suit and diner-stained necktie, he will not be reforming anything. That's okay with me, because I didn't ask him to do anything.
7) But that leaves us with a reform job still to do. So I propose, once again that we put Apple designers, Google engineers, one smart nurse, one good doctor, one mom, one retired person, one veteran and a dentist in a room. In two weeks, they will have a healthcare plan that we can all buy. We won't need any legislation. Max Baucus can go back to doing Baucusian things. The President can focus on China (the key to Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, debt, the economy, Detroit, etc.)
8) Here's a list we can give that healthcare team: a) Americans are fat; we need to be leaner, b) Americans have terrible diets; they need to improve, c) Americans don't exercise; they need to start walking, d) American schools are bad, so income lags, and poor people get sick more often; we need to fix the schools e) immigrants are here, they use schools and they use healthcare. We can call them whatever names we want, but they are here, not over there. We need to figure them into school and healthcare reform, f) The wealthy are annoying in a thousand different ways, but it is not inherently evil to be wealthy. All immigrants want to be wealthy, but not all immigrants want to be evil, so g) Let's have the wealthy pay more for healthcare and let's have all immigrants pay something by considering a national sales tax to be used only towards healthcare, h) If Max Baucus or any other Congressional type person tries to use those tax proceeds for something else, we will sentence them to 20 years fixing fenceposts in Wyoming or wherever the hell it is that Max Baucus hails from!
Now, let's get serious.
No comments:
Post a Comment