DILBERT: WHY THE NEW HEALTHCARE BILL WILL BE A LOSER

... I expect the next version of the Republican healthcare bill to be a complete failure. That’s because Republicans seem deeply committed to a losing path, thanks to what might be called the Contrast Problem.

Contrast is the driving principle behind all decisions. You have to know how your options differ, and by how much, or else you have no basis for a decision. President Obama solved for the contrast problem by designing Obamacare to cover more people than before. The rest of the details – especially the costs – were hard to predict, so our brains flushed that noise and focused on the greater number of people covered.

Everyone knew Obamacare would need future tuning to get it right. That gave us mental permission to focus on the good parts we understood – the greater coverage – and hope the other details would get worked out later. President Obama nailed the Contrast Problem like the Master Persuader he is.
That was then.
Now, President Trump and the Republicans have the “going second” problem. The public will compare their proposed bill with Obamacare and conclude that the one metric they understand – the number of people covered – does not compare favorably with Obamacare. The contrast is fatal.
We know Paul Ryan will do his wonkish best to tell us about all the amazing advantages of this new bill. And we know the public won’t understand any of it. But they sure will know it doesn’t cover as many people. Done. Bury it.
During the campaign, candidate Trump made some references to taking care of everyone. It sounded like universal coverage, but no one thought he meant it.

He did mean it.

He meant it because he understands the contrast problem. Any Obamacare replacement needs to cover more people than Obamacare, or else it is dead on arrival. Any skilled persuader would see that.

Paul Ryan doesn’t see the Contrast Problem as important, evidently.

I think most trained persuaders would agree that the one-and-only path to a successful replacement of Obamacare should include AT A MINIMUM a plan to reach greater coverage. And the only way to get there is by goosing innovation in the healthcare field. We can’t tax our way to full healthcare coverage. We need to lower the costs. And President Trump also needs to solve the Contrast Problem.

Scott Adams Blog