A Republican Approach to Governing

The Obama healthcare effort suffered from two process problems. First, the goal was unclear. Second, it tried to do too much at once.

If I may direct your attention to the New York Times editorial of October 18, 2009, “The Public Plan, Continued.” The editorial advocates for the “public option,” the creation of a new government-run health insurance company. In the first paragraph, the editorial advocates for the public option because it will “inject more competition into insurance markets, hold down the cost of insurance policies, and save money for the federal budget.” Putting aside the absurd reasoning later in the piece, with which I will not trouble you, the key is that in October 2009 the New York Times was selling Obamacare primarily as a cost cutting move. In September 2009, Obama had focused his message on getting insurance for 30 million uninsured people. So what is it? Medical care for the poor? Cost cuts for everyone? If cost cuts are the goal, how much are we cutting? If we're helping the poor is our goal to reduce the number of uninsured to zero? What are we doing here?

If you are going to launch an initiative, you must have a clearly articulated goal. Otherwise, you cannot sell it and you cannot know whether you are successfully achieving your goal. You cannot be effective.

Trying to create one single, perfect, comprehensive solution to a problem is typical of an intellectual. I like intellectuals but they are often bad managers. Anyone with experience with major businesses can tell you that the best way to solve a big problem is to disaggregate it into a bunch of small, manageable problems and start solving the easiest ones first. Among other things, this is a humble approach that admits we cannot be sure, despite the careful planning of however many well trained and compensated MBAs and analysts, what the effects of initiatives will be. What we know is that we will learn from experience -- in fact we are confident that in some ways we will be wrong. Therefore in business we make one small bet at a time rather than one huge bet all at once. The Republicans recommended exactly such a “low hanging fruit” approach to healthcare, proposing to begin any set of reforms with some manageable, reversible experiments. As Lamar Alexander said recently from the floor of the Senate, “Human experience has always taught that enough small steps in the right direction is one good way to get you where you want to go and also a good way to avoid many unexpected and unpleasant consequences.”

Similarly, in governance, we should follow four principles to form a Republican style of governance:
- Focus on things we can accomplish that will yield tangible results.
- Be clear about what our goals are
- Approach problems humbly. Launch incremental, step by step programs. We will reverse programs that don't work. We will double down on programs that do work.
- Look back and be vocally self-critical if we fail to achieve our goals

Such a style would provide a healthy contrast with the Obama administration’s first year.