The New Health Dialogue

With the President looking to shift gears to focus on jobs, the economy, education, and a host of other issues, the signature priority of his first year, health care reform, appears stalled -- or at least idling. Slate’s Timothy Noah invited his readers to figure out how to get it going again.

Inviting readers to submit their thoughts on how to pass comprehensive reform, Noah set a few ground rules (Snowe’s a no, so is revoking the filibuster), but mostly he was looking for fresh thinking. The results are in! Combing through some 570 submissions, Noah picked his top eight. The whole list's worth a read running the gamut from time machines that could take us back to 1974 to a well placed ambassadorship for a certain senator from Iowa. Our personal favorite was probably No. 6

Sixth runner-up: Ben Swainbank, Portsmouth, N.H.:
All right, pop quiz. You're president of the United States. You've almost passed health care reform. You're past the House. You're past the Senate. You're almost there. You can taste it.

But you've got problems.

You've got two bills. They're about the same. They do what they need to do. But all you hear about are the flaws. Everybody is yelling and screaming. You need everyone to agree on everything or you're screwed. And Joe Lieberman might just screw you for the sake of screwing you.

You've got a special election in Massachusetts coming up. And you've got your big State of the Union speech coming right at you. Like a bus.

Got that, hotshot? What do you do?

Throw the special election. Take the Senate out of the equation. Have the [Democratic] candidate insult the Red Sox. They won't be able to drag her across the finish line …

After you throw the election, you watch everyone panic. Act like big reform is impossible now. What happens then? All the lefties that have been blasting you coming running to the rescue.

That Senate bill starts to look pretty darn good when the alternative is complete failure. [Andrew] Sullivan, [Joe] Klein, [Paul] Krugman, DailyKos, the single-payers, the public opters, the Medicare expanders, the bloggers, and the papers. Everyone is singing the same tune. The Senate bill will cover the uninsured. The Senate bill will cut costs. The Senate bill will sort out the insurance companies. The Senate bill is what we need. Everyone is on your side and singing the praises of your health care plan.

Just in time for your big speech ...  

In terms of car talk,  we’d call that double clutch.