Why is it so hard to reform health care? The issues are complex

One reason it’s so hard to make progress on health care reform is that it’s an extremely complex problem. Although President Obama does an excellent job of articulating the issues simply and clearly, it appears his message is not getting through clearly enough.

Dan Roam, a business consultant and the author of The Back of the Napkin, believes in visual thinking as a way to understand and communicate complex ideas. His basic argument is that if you can identify the specifics of a problem and communicate them clearly, then you can get the response you need to fund the solution to that problem.

Source: The Christian Science Monitor

For example, if you say “Global warming is a momentous, important problem,” that may be true, but it may not inspire action. On the other hand, If you draw simple illustrations and say “Making all roofs and streets white would give us a onetime energy savings equivalent to removing all cars for 18 years,” you may find investors who can relate to that image.

Here’s what Dan Roam comes up with when he applies his visualization technique to the problem of health care reform.

Healthcare Napkins All

View more documents from Dan Roam.

A picture and a thousand words

I like the question that ends the presentation: Should health be a profit-driven business? It’s too bad so much of the media coverage of health care reform is about the politics and not the more fundamental issues.

One thing Roam’s presentation illustrates is that visuals make it easier to hold an audience’s attention and thus to communicate important information. The presentation also provides a starting point for stimulating a group discussion. Roam is quoted as saying: “We don’t show an insight-inspiring picture because it saves a thousand words; we show it because it elicits the thousand words that make the greatest difference.”

Thanks to KevinMd for the link to Dan Roam.

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