Prioritizing

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/business/economy/12every.html?emc=eta1

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article.cfm?articleid=2297

When you go in to turn around a company, it is best to try to figure out what needs to be done first and heavily emphasize that by placing the needed people, capital and other appropriate resources on the problem - this would be as opposed to figuring out what's number 1, 2, and 3 in importance and spreading the best people out over those areas because that will get more accomplished. In most cases, if the latter of those two approaches is taken, failure at fixing number 1 is assured and numbers 2 and 3 never get fixed because it's "over".

If we might, for the moment, look at the "health care" initiative as one of the priorities the Obama administration feels needs to be addressed urgently, where does it rank? Is it number 1? No. I think that the Great Recession is number 1. So, have we diluted Obama's brilliant team of economists and other professionals by charging at this problem simultaneously with problem number 1? Worse, have we politicized the health care problem by suggesting (as Rom Emanuel has) that there is nothing like a crisis to get a lot of things done - especially when the President's approval rating is as high as it is/was. Oh, and we need to get the health care thing done by "August" - so let's rush the people who have to get that done (August is now out per an anouncement today).

I have attached Ben Stein's article in "Everybody's Business" (7/12 - NY Times) where he essentailly makes this point. It would appear that the administration is simultaneously seeking to end the recession (with, per Buffet/Krugman, not enough stimulus), discussing drastic changes to laws on foreclosures and energy use, and changing the health care system. As Stein says, whether or not we need to do something radical with energy, why do it right now? Do we need to take one of the few sectors that is working like clockwork through the recession - oil refining - and wring its neck by paying for pollution "cap and trade" credits? Why attack a healthy industry when so many other sectors are ill?

Assuming a more reasonable time frame for improving the health care system, since that has now been forced on the administration, some attention needs to be paid to one of the major "choke points" if millions of uninsured Americans will soon gain access to it: General Practice Doctors (GPs). The Wharton School's position, in conjunction with the University of Pennsylvania Hospital (K@W Another Hurdle to Health Care Reform...7/22/09), on this issue is very clear: there aren't enough GPs and it will take a while to produce them. According to The American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC), even if the number of physicians in this field remained the same, there would be a shortage of 124,000 doctors of all types by 2025, although that number could climb as high as 159,000 should demand for doctors pick up along with wider insurance coverage.

Expanding health care opportunity for the currently uninsured needs to be thought about in the context of HOW the health care system will be able to provide that opportunity. If health care ranks number 2 in prioity, this issue probably has not been worked out yet. What are some of the other issues that have not been thought out?