Politics. For political people, social media is next-level fireside chat just without the practiced civility of a Roosevelt. Hence, we were early adopters.
(My personal Twitter account was established in 2009)
The benefits are many. As local media struggled into the new media age, topics like up zoning a three-acre parcel, stormwater improvements and the size of the recent police cadet class became much less interesting to editors and publishers.
Fortunately, Blogger, then Facebook, then Twitter became an efficient and unfiltered way to reach hundred and even thousands of people who might actually be interested in the boring but essential parts of government.
It did not take long for advertisers to conclude social media offered cost effective ways to reach a lot of people directly in just the way they wished. From there it was a short walk for anyone with a cause, from political campaigns to hostile state actors, to exploit the speed and scale of platforms, like Twitter, offered.
Policy development – that old fashioned process of identifying a problem, proposing a solution, and finding consensus - became mostly unnecessary. All that was required was to recruit some talking heads and overwhelm these platforms with foregone conclusions.
The fate of reasonable and balanced policies was sealed when legacy media, stricken with a massive case of FOMO, decided their future would be defined, not by thinking for themselves, but by turning up the volume on half-baked ideas like zeroing out your local police department’s budget.
The political class became so used to the ease with which they could short circuit the slow and tedious processes of lawmaking, they eventually resorted to bullying. On the one hand threatening anti-trust regulation while on the other demanding the inconvenient, like former New York Times reporter, Alex Berenson, be dismissed.
Bullying almost always meets with resistance and so it is. Berenson sued and settled for restoration of his Twitter account and in the process uncovered what appears be White House meddling. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya of Stanford and Dr. Martin Kulldorff at Harvard have sued in the Western District of Louisiana over similar concerns.
While the lawyers work it out, the tide of political trends like “defund” the police (an impossibility from the start), counterproductive energy policies and Modern Monetary Theory are revealed for that they are, half-baked notions with the advocacy of the powerful not the consensus of the electorate.
The timing, of course, could not be worse.
Policy. The sand on which recent but unimplemented policies are built is not altogether different from the footings of the Affordable Care Act. The difference is the ACA made it into law, albeit by the skin of its teeth.
President Barack Obama knew a thing or two about grassroots organizing via social media and text. His campaign tactics were put to good use to effect passage of the ACA and maintaining its position in law despite relentless attacks.
So sacred has this one particular cow become that even Republicans have chosen to ignore it as more pressing matters have come to the fore like inflation, education and immigration.
Yet, for all that regulatory protection afforded the health care and insurance industries by the ACA, there is scant evidence that it has produced healthy Americans. You might even be forgiven for arguing that widespread health insurance is morally hazardous to your health.
Blasphemy, I know.
With mid-term elections, assuming they turn out the way it feels like they will, we likely begin a new era for health policy. Of course, the aforementioned pressing matters will inhale most of Washington’s thin air but in the background some of the groundwork is being laid.
With Rand Paul at the head of the Senate HELP committee, his Libertarian bent toward deregulation and transparency should be the starting point.
Power. As the social media era arrives at its ignominious end, accompanied by the once unheard of, like layoffs and 40-hour work weeks for those that remain, the most necessary and desirable American worker is not the one that can code.
It is the hourly service worker whose physical presence in the workplace cannot be replaced by AI or robotics – at least not yet. DVA missed and slashed guidance last week as labor exacted their price. The company competes with the restaurant industry for hourly workers and there are no signs that will improve anytime soon.
California voters will get another shot at regulating the industry with minimum staffing requirements on the Nov. 8th ballot. Unlike previous attempts, this one sounds benign enough that is might just pass. Salt in the wound, as they say.
Ironically, health care’s dependency on low wage, low skill workers offers an opportunity for all those Twitter engineers and data scientists to turn their skills toward something more productive than making it easier to see how many kids your class president has now.
Of course, #healthcareishard so maybe forget I said that.
Have a great rest of your weekend.
Emily Evans
Managing Director – Health Policy
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