Now these same writers are out of jobs. To them, the major policy debates in healthcare in this country focused on the role of private healthcare in a publicly funded system. That debate, as most people who work in healthcare well know, is a public policy side-show: it lends itself to stridency and polarized positions. The partisan media, on either side of the ideological fence, played up its significance.

Today, thanks to diverse online media and a changing generational ethos, constructive ideas in healthcare get more attention than "I'm right, you're wrong" chest-thumping. We stand at a welcome moment in human history. Positive recommendations on how to improve the quality and sustainability of healthcare systems receive rapt attention. The pamphleteers and the critics no longer matter.

Consider the evidence.

1. The TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference is the most prestigious intellectual venue in the world - the Nobel Prize of constructive, game-changing ideas that stress creative cooperation ("ideas worth spreading"). As of April 2009, TED talks had been viewed over 100 million times by more than 15 million people. The theme for next year's conference in Oxford is: "And Now the Good News."
2. Most of the most widely read healthcare blogs - of which there are hundreds of thousands on the World Wide Web - are run by patient advocates, clinicians, researchers, students and technology experts who are not in the business of criticism. They have constructive things to say about how to improve healthcare. Fitsugar.com (among the most popular health blogs on the Web) offers healthy tips for weight management and exercise (one blog post recently compared the health benefits of squats vs. lunges). The two most popular mainstream newspaper blogs, the Wall Street Journal's health blog and the New York Times' health blog, are free of partisan mudslinging, focusing instead on objective news content and wellness tips. Most important, popular blogs such as these and emergiblog ("the life and times of an ER nurse") encourage interaction, commentary, and collaboration.
3. In Canada, the role of the market in Medicare has been eclipsed by public debate over how to contain chronic disease. Even the wait-times controversy has slipped off the radar. This has changed the tenor of public discourse around healthcare. So patent and profound is the impact of chronic disease on human health, and on the public purse, that it has chipped away at partisanship. Instead, elected representatives of all stripes now speak to "evidence-based" solutions - the phrase is increasingly heard in parliamentary committees - to tackle chronic disease issues, from diabetes to cancer to mental health. Arguing by anecdote and vituperation has become less common in the public square.
4. Even in the context of formerly acrimonious debates, notably, the role of the market in Medicare, post-partisanship hangs in the air. It's more than just the summer lull. Canadians seem to have less interest than Americans in television "debates" featuring extremist opinions on healthcare. We have matured.

Enough with the Critics

Comments

Be the first to comment on this!