By Bill Rusteberg
When things become political simple decisions benefiting everyone can become hard to make. A circular firing squad kills good ideas swiftly and effectively through “self destructive internal conflict and mutual recriminations.”
The politics of change happen in every industry but it is most pronounced in the public sector. It takes political courage to prevail because changing the paradigm of health care delivery for the good of all invariably brings resistance from entrenched vested interests.
It’s the politics of change that drives success or failure in structuring strategies others have implemented with outstanding success. Internal politics and self-interests often dictate how people weigh logic and reason against the status quo built on alliances with “friendly & trusted” vested interests within their respective communities.
The foundation of Political Courage to Prevail must be based on empirical evidence and education. Irrefutable empirical evidence exposing waste, fraud, and overpayment of health care translates to a dollar value. A dollar value in the scheme of a tax based entity is necessarily an essential ingredient to public accountability and fulfillment of fiduciary duties to plan members and taxpayers.
Educating plan decision makers is of paramount importance. It is an essential first step towards change. Plan sponsors must be on board in breaking with the status quo and venturing out to where others have gone before them in solving health care. Internal politics must be aligned.
An entire strategy for solving health care is centered upon the power of knowledge squarely based on reason and logic against which status quo special interests cannot prevail. To that end simple decisions become easy no matter how hard it is.
