My wife was complaining recently about the failures of the Obama administration. Every candidate she ever voted for, she said, wound up disappointing her. She was also frustrated by the lack of apprent workable alternatives. She found some comfort, however, in concluding, "I guess it will be OK, the system pretty much runs itself anyway."

She really hit on the truth there. If there's an American genius, it's the ability to make things
work, even when they seem hopelessly broken. The system "runs itself" because fundamentally, we all agree about what things are essential and we know to get there, even though it seems we never agree about anything.

Obama's signature issue was health care. He had a plan. The Republican's didn't like that plan. They had a different plan. Or, they liked the plan we already had. Everyone said they knew how to fix health care and the other guys didn't. What we got was a power play, not real agreement.

In civil law, there's a procedure known as "summary judgment" to bring a lawsuit to an end without a trial. A summary judgment requires an agreement between the plaintiff and the defendant as to relevant facts, or an admitted inability by one party to dispute facts alleged by their opponent. Once there's no dispute as to facts, the Court will apply the law to those
facts and make a ruling. Trials are only needed when relevant facts are in dispute: that is, the purpose of a civil trial is to establish what the facts actually are. The basic way to avoid a summary judgment motion by one side is for the other side to show that relevant facts are in dispute.

Congress is supposed to be the greatest fact finding body in the world. They can subpoena any witness, compel the production of any document, and inquire of the greatest thinkers in any field to aid them in framing legislation. Republicans and Democrats had all that power at their fingertips, but evidently never used it. What Obama should have done was to call the leaders of Congress to the White House and said, "I want you to find out why it costs so much to be sick in this country and after you know that, jointly propose legislation to reduce those costs or figure out a way to pay for them". Once Republicans and Democrats uncovered the real facts, workable solutions could have been reached with far less partisan grandstanding. We might have learned stuff we didn't know, or disproved what everyone thought they did know.

Passing health care laws without a joint investigation was the equivalent of a judge ruling on a lawsuit without agreement on the facts. What we got was a partisan plan, based on what the Democrats thought were the facts.

My wife was right-- the system runs itself. It just doesn't run very well.