All year long the new Speaker of the House John Boehner has been promising “common sense reforms” to the spiraling costs of health care and the myriad ramifications (almost all negative) for the national economy.
Common sense is an appeal to what we already know. But, to paraphrase the former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, there are things we know we do not know. When what we lack is information, we cannot appeal to common sense.
Last December, Atul Gawande documented how our 21st century health care system is plagued by the same problems that once crippled the U.S. agricultural sector: “fragmented and disorganized, and ignor[ing] evidence showing how things could be done better.”
Gawande explains how the health care reforms championed by President Obama would, first and foremost, give us the insights we need to tackle the very complex problem of a for-profit health care market place.
What Representative Boehner doesn’t realize – or, perhaps, want to admit – is that ObamaCare is making common sense.
postscript: The Impact of Health Insurance Reform in Massachusetts by Jonathan T. Kolstad and Amanda E. Kowalski at Econbrowser.