Are there lessons for health policy from the presidential election?
I’m impressed by the huge gulf between what health policy gurus talk about and what matters to real citizens. So, for example, there’s just been a proliferation of studies documenting that the quality of care is fairly mediocre. The Institute of Medicine and landmark articles have documented that and prescribed a major reform to address poor quality. Yet, we just heard both presidential candidates asserting that America has the best health care in the world. We don’t. And, in fact, even the best health care in America may not be the best in the world. People are too easily misled, especially about very complicated, data-driven evidence around health care policy. This election proved again that there is a real need for health care researchers and policy makers—with journalists—to take more responsibility for making sure that the data—the evidence about health care—is not misused. And this goes beyond just presidential elections.
