Today is the first day I can write a diary at DK, and by chance it is the day I got to question Attorney General Rob McKenna, Republican candidate for governor of Washington state.
Mr. McKenna spoke to a group at my workplace today, making the case for us to support him for governor. This being Washington, a fairly blue state, McKenna does not come off as an intolerable social conservative or an ignoramus. That just wouldn't work here, not in a statewide election. The guy seems fairly sharp, a pleasant alternative to some of the nationally prominent Republicans we've been watching. However, he is also one of the attorney generals who joined in a lawsuit against the Affordable Care Act, so I was hoping for a chance to question him on health care.
His agenda for the economy was a lot of what you would expect from any Republican: Competition is The Answer. Washington needs to be more attractive for businesses; not a word about it being a good place to be employed. Unions are getting in the way. We need to invest in our schools, longer hours, more preschools -- not sure how you will pay for that without ever ever ever raising taxes, but still, nothing too controversial.
But he pointed out that health care in this country is about twice as expensive in the US as it is in other countries, and not necessarily more effective. His solution is to change incentives so that people have more reason to consider the cost of care before they decide on treatment -- use market forces to control costs. And since I believe that he personally is one of the most prominent people opposing a better solution, I had the opening I wanted. He finished his remarks, and someone asked if we had questions. My hand went right up, first question to me.
I was nice. I asked if he was really "General McKenna", as he had been introduced. (He said he grew up an Army kid and knew what a General was, and he wasn't really.) I thanked him for being there. Then a question that went something like this:
"I want to challenge you a bit on health care. You said that our health care costs twice what it costs in other countries, and the level of care is not much better. But most of those countries cover all their citizens at a much lower cost than the US, and they use nationally managed systems that are very different from what you propose, where they have removed the profit incentive. Rather than tinker with our broken system, why not borrow ideas that are working in other countries?"
And then I sat back and let him answer. He knows a lot about health care, and it's safe to say he had heard the question before. It wasn't a debate; I wasn't going to challenge his answer, although I thought it fell short. And then other people asked questions, and I don't think any of them challenged him at all.
And that was that, but I was exhilarated. Several people mentioned afterward that it was a good question, including one who engaged me for about five minutes, talking about how other countries see health care as a moral issue, an issue of fairness. Most importantly, I got the opportunity to plant an idea in the minds of everyone there, that maybe those socialist/communist/whatever countries in Europe, or Japan, or Canada, have better solutions than we do. Maybe a national health care system works. Maybe our current system is really inefficient, and the reason we spend so much isn't that consumers want expensive tests, but because some corporation is making money off of every MRI, every CAT scan.
Maybe I changed the dialogue a little. It was certainly fun to try.