Blondie was not in a good mood this morning.

You know, they say that if you don't reach for the stars, you'll never grasp them. On the other hand, I can count the men who've reached for the stars and grasped them on one hand, with five fingers to spare. Being a pessimist has its advantages. If you keep your eye on the sidewalk, you'll not trip over anything, and sometimes, you'll find that someone has dropped a coin.

The birds they sang
at the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what
has passed away
or what is yet to be.

I used to say penny, but these days, people don't even bend over to pick up a dime. Some don't bother to pick up a quarter. So it pays to be a pessimist - you don't have to settle for not being a chipper pain in the ass to everyone around you.

An Electoral Disappointment

The election in Massachusetts was a great disappointment to Blondie. She never saw a Republican politician she favored, and if a Democrat falls into disfavor, she claims they aren't real Democrats. I used to tease her that her favorite athlete, Tiger Woods, was a Republican. These days, she says, "What can you expect from a Republican?" and no longer lists Tiger among her favorites.

And it appears, from insufficient evidence, that the Democratic party will have to follow Howard Dean's advice: scrap the whole health reform legislation, and start over from scratch.

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in.

I have a suggestion, though. Computer programmers build extremely complex mechanisms all the time, and despite the fact that every sufficiently complex mechanism has bugs, there are an awful lot of programs that work mostly right, most of the time. Maybe it would make sense for politicians to pay attention to how computer programmers get it right, when, in fact, they do get it right.

And the answer is, they start out making lots of mistakes, and they fix them, one at a time. That's not how they speak of the process, of course; it's not good for career advancement to announce that your plan is to start out by making lots of mistakes. Instead, they speak of "stepwise refinement".

Fred Brooks Works For Politics, Too

And, in fact, Congress has just finished step one of the software development cycle, as defined by Fred Brooks in "The Mythical Man-Month". "Plan to throw one away; you will, anyhow. Fred advises. Then, use what you've learned from your first attempt in order to build a version 2.0 that will be significantly better - because of what you've learned in developing version 1.0.

We asked for signs;
The signs were sent.
The birth betrayed,
The marriage spent.
Yeah the widowhood
Of every government --
Signs for all to see.

That odd book title comes from a point Brooks makes: "The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned." Fred learned about building huge systems by building the systems software for the IBM/360 computers.

For instance, one of the problems in the original health plan was that nobody really understood it. (Fred Brooks: "Much of the essence of building a program is in fact the debugging of the specification.") A lack of understanding made it easy for Sarah Palin to scare people with "death panels" and for others to clog up the legislative process arguing over abortion. You need to start with something that everyone understands.

That would be Medicare Part A and B. Don't try to do everything at once. Medicare A pays for hospitalization; Medicare B pays for doctors. Pretty simple, right? You simply pass a law that requires everyone to carry insurance with Medicare A & B coverage or better.

People Understand A & B

The assumption is that employers will provide this coverage for every employee. The employer gets a tax deduction for this - but instead of giving them what the employer actually pays, they get a deduction equal to the average cost of real Medicare A & B, both the part paid for by the government and the part paid by recipients. Since people who qualify for Medicare A & B are either old or else they are disabled, they tend to be more expensive to insure and thus most employers should make out like a bandit by doing this.

You can add up the parts,
But you won't have the sum.
You can strike up the march,
There is no drum
Every heart, every heart
To love will come -
But like a refugee.

Some unemployed people will be able to remain on their old insurance plans through COBRA. Others will not. If you're unemployed, you would automatically be insured by Uncle Sam, at cost plus 2%, the same formula used for COBRA. No need to apply, you just automatically are covered. If you're unemployed, you probably don't have the cash to pay for it right then, so it gets added to your income tax bill, payable on April 15.

It's fair, and people can understand it. Is it perfect? Heavens, no! For one thing, it doesn't cover medicines. That's where stepwise refinement comes into play. Over the years, we keep making small adjustments, adjustments that people can understand, until we get the system we need.

There Is A Crack In Everything

Does it solve every problem? No. It ends the problem of hospitals providing poor quality health care in the emergency room, though. People will go to their own doctor instead, and they'll both save money through getting problems fixed while they are still small, and they'll get better health care because the doctor that treats them understands their health situation, having all the records in front of him.

It also helps small businesses get off the ground, because top employees are no longer tethered to a large employer because they have a family member who has a health problem. That sets them free to work for the employer who can best use their skills.

So yeah, there's a crack in my proposed health care v.2 - but that's because there's a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
a crack in everything - abortion - death panels - Fred Brooks - Leonard Cohen - Massachusetts election - Medicare - Mythical Man-Month - optimism - Sarah Palin - stepwise refinement - Tiger Woods