If I could chat with the QALY over a beer…

You’ve been having a hard time lately. Every action of the federal government closes more doors for you. It must be frustrating to genuinely want to help the country and have so much to give, yet you’re rebuffed at every turn. You need a new approach.

·  The American public has made it very clear that they are tired of educated elites telling them what to do. That includes health economists, policy wonks, officials of agencies under HHS, and other academics that lecture them unsympathetically.

·  The voters that made this election are ordinary people who wake up every day and most of them do real stuff with physical objects. They’re not interested in your theories of value. They want to know what they’re buying and what they can expect to get in return.

·  You will have to explain value in words that a non-economist can understand. They don’t care about real option value, scientific spillover, or health state utilities.

·  They DO care about their health. They want to live full lives, able to do the activities that matter to them. When they get sick, they want a health professional to make it better, without a lot of hassle and unexpected bills they can’t pay for “services” they don’t understand and didn’t even know they got.

·  They want a safe, healthy world in which to raise their kids, with the hope that the world they leave behind will be better than the one they inherited.

Maybe it would help to realize you’re having a mid-life crisis. We all go through that. Don’t give up—just be creative and re-invent your public image.