A better choice for Surgeon General

Friday, January 09, 2009 by Dave Winer.

Our future President (11 days!) is said to be considering a famous TV doctor for Sur-Gen.  

Paul Krugman explains why he's not a good choice, and I concur, but something has been bothering me about this, and an email from a friend helped nail it. 

If you really want to turn things upside-down for the better, instead of a healthy young doctor, how about an older person who is not a doctor, who has health problems and has been treated by the system, someone who has actual experience being a user of American health care. 

Then let the doctors and insurance companies and HMOs listen a bit. There's no doubt the other users would hear what this person says. (There's a scene in the latest Clint Eastwood film that illustrates this principle beautifully.) 

I am not suggesting an average or ordinary person, not a Joe The Patient, not a knucklehead or idiot, rather someone with a life of accomplishment, a passion for living, but someone who hasn't lived the perfect life and paid a price, and maybe someone like the future President who saw a relative die sooner or suffer more because of deficiency in the system. 

That would signal a very pragmatic change -- from health care defining an ideal most of us won't achieve, to improving or just sustaining the reality we make the best of. 

Thanks to Ann Greenberg, a longtime friend and Berkeley neighbor, for the perspective-shifting email.