Health Care reform and the fear of change
The New Yorker has the best article I have seen about the psychology of the fear of change as it relates to the current health care debate. A couple points that really stuck out to me.
Most of us, for instance, are prey to the so-called “endowment effect”: the mere fact that you own something leads you to overvalue it.
What this suggests about health care is that, if people have insurance, most will value it highly, no matter how flawed the current system. And, in fact, more than seventy per cent of Americans say they’re satisfied with their current coverage. More strikingly, talk of changing the system may actually accentuate the endowment effect. Last year, a Rasmussen poll found that only twenty-nine percent of likely voters rated the U.S. health-care system good or excellent. Yet when Americans were asked the very same question last month, forty-eight per cent rated it that highly. The American health-care system didn’t suddenly improve over the past eleven months. People just feel it’s working better because they’re being asked to contemplate changing it.
The Springfield News- Leader also has an excellent Voice of the Day by Stephen Sloan about the current inefficiencies and inequities of the current system. I hope you take the time to read them.
