Money and Finance
- Who Is To Blame For Healthcare.gov? (hint: The Initials Are Rpv) - By Ben Wanamaker And Devin Bean
Who botched Healthcare.gov? The contractors, politicians, and president all claim that they are not responsible – and they are all right. Forcing a new idea into a locked government business model virtually guaranteed that problems would arise. Further...
- Interview With Atul Gawande - By Alex Howard
Found via Simoleon Sense. Dr. Atul Gawande (@Atul_Gawande) has been a bard in the health care world, straddling medicine, academia and the humanities as a practicing surgeon, medical school professor, best-selling author and staff writer at the New Yorker...
- The Absolute Return Letter - September 2012: How To Unscramble An Egg
This month we take a closer look at the root problems behind the current crisis. Too often root problems are confused with symptoms and the wrong medicine is prescribed as a result. We identify five root problems, all of which must be addressed before...
- The Obesity Epidemic: Is The Metabolic Syndrome A Nutritional Deficiency Disease? - By Stephanie Seneff
Found via Art De Vany. The United States is currently facing an obesity epidemic across its population, affecting children and adults alike. It is now estimated that 30% of Americans are overweight, and the problem has been worsening over time. Why does...
- Notes From Tim Harford's Book "adapt"
Via Farnam Street: Biologists have a word for the way in which solutions emerge from failure: evolution. ... Disconcertingly, given our instinctive belief that complex problems require expertly designed solutions, it is completely unplanned. Astounding...
Money and Finance
Atul Gawande: Why the Uninsured Are Still Vulnerable
Tens of millions of Americans don’t have access to basic care for prevention and treatment of illness. For decades, there’s been wide support for universal health care. Finally, with the passage of Obamacare, two years ago, we did something about it. The law would provide coverage for people like those my friends told me about, either through its expansion of Medicaid eligibility or through subsidized private insurance. Yet the country has remained convulsed by battles over whether we should implement this plan—or any particular plan. Now that the Supreme Court has largely upheld Obamacare, it’s tempting to imagine that the battles will subside. There’s reason to think that they won’t.
In 1973, two social scientists, Horst Rittel and Melvin Webber, defined a class of problems they called “wicked problems.” Wicked problems are messy, ill-defined, more complex than we fully grasp, and open to multiple interpretations based on one’s point of view. They are problems such as poverty, obesity, where to put a new highway—or how to make sure that people have adequate health care.
They are the opposite of “tame problems,” which can be crisply defined, completely understood, and fixed through technical solutions. Tame problems are not necessarily simple—they include putting a man on the moon or devising a cure for diabetes. They are, however, solvable. Solutions to tame problems either work or they don’t.
Solutions to wicked problems, by contrast, are only better or worse. Trade-offs are unavoidable. Unanticipated complications and benefits are both common. And opportunities to learn by trial and error are limited. You can’t try a new highway over here and over there; you put it where you put it. But new issues will arise. Adjustments will be required. No solution to a wicked problem is ever permanent or wholly satisfying, which leaves every solution open to easy polemical attack.
- Who Is To Blame For Healthcare.gov? (hint: The Initials Are Rpv) - By Ben Wanamaker And Devin Bean
Who botched Healthcare.gov? The contractors, politicians, and president all claim that they are not responsible – and they are all right. Forcing a new idea into a locked government business model virtually guaranteed that problems would arise. Further...
- Interview With Atul Gawande - By Alex Howard
Found via Simoleon Sense. Dr. Atul Gawande (@Atul_Gawande) has been a bard in the health care world, straddling medicine, academia and the humanities as a practicing surgeon, medical school professor, best-selling author and staff writer at the New Yorker...
- The Absolute Return Letter - September 2012: How To Unscramble An Egg
This month we take a closer look at the root problems behind the current crisis. Too often root problems are confused with symptoms and the wrong medicine is prescribed as a result. We identify five root problems, all of which must be addressed before...
- The Obesity Epidemic: Is The Metabolic Syndrome A Nutritional Deficiency Disease? - By Stephanie Seneff
Found via Art De Vany. The United States is currently facing an obesity epidemic across its population, affecting children and adults alike. It is now estimated that 30% of Americans are overweight, and the problem has been worsening over time. Why does...
- Notes From Tim Harford's Book "adapt"
Via Farnam Street: Biologists have a word for the way in which solutions emerge from failure: evolution. ... Disconcertingly, given our instinctive belief that complex problems require expertly designed solutions, it is completely unplanned. Astounding...