Baseball and Healthcare

Today, the New York Times printed a brilliant op-ed piece, co-written by former Republican Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, Democratic Senator from the state of Massachusetts, John Kerry, and General Manager of the Oakland A's, Billy Beane.

IN the past decade, baseball has experienced a data-driven information revolution. Numbers-crunchers now routinely use statistics to put better teams on the field for less money. Our overpriced, underperforming health care system needs a similar revolution. ("How to take American Health Care from Worst to First")

Americans always pull this BS attitude about how great our healthcare system is, even though it's clearly broken. "Try going to Canada and waiting," they always say. Frankly, I'd rather wait a little bit for a procedure than go into crippling debt in order to pay for it. But maybe that's just me.

Anyway, this piece is about how medical systems could apply sabermetrics in order to dramatically reduce costs and improve efficiency, which explains why Beane is a co-writer in the article. Gingrich and Kerry provide some serious bipartisan gravitas, as two incredibly bright people that come from opposite sides of the political spectrum.