Recently I joined a small breakfast with a senior Democratic Senator who lamented the "lack of critical thinking" on healthcare reform. The intellectual pendulum on how to reform healthcare swings a wide and uneven arc. This is especially true in Congress, with visible factions existing even within the Democratic Caucus. Gathering momentum in any direction seems almost impossible. We need more than critical thinking -- we need a critical mass of thinking.
This notion of "a critical mass" is akin to a widely accepted framework, a mutually agreed upon intellectual infrastructure on which people from different political parties, geographies and backgrounds can agree. These core operating assumptions serve as a launching pad for additional, more nuanced policy discussions.
This critical mass of thinking does not necessarily gather quickly or easily -- in fact, it often takes decades to accumulate. In 1947, an article in Foreign Affairs magazine by George Kennan, Deputy Chief of Mission of the United States to the USSR and better known as "Mr. X", established a foundation that would be built upon for the rest of the century, informing policy makers, academics and members of the military through the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's to when I worked on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1989. There was indeed a critical mass of thinking on many of the core foreign policy questions of our time. Everyone agreed that there were too many nuclear weapons in central Europe; everyone agreed that Communism was bad; everyone agreed that politics stopped at the water's edge. These foundational assumptions, among others, enabled the negotiations and Senate passage of major arms reduction treaties with the Soviets, SALT I and SALT II, and led to treaties reducing conventional ground forces in Europe. The critical mass of thinking on foreign policy facilitated bipartisan support and helped to launch thoughtful and complex treaties that had a major impact on international politics.
Every so often, a critical mass of thinking can be generated by extraordinary leadership in a relatively short period of time. President Reagan managed it in the 1980s, culminating with the 1986 tax bill - the largest tax cut in the history of the United States, which passed with sizeable bipartisan majorities in both the Senate (67-8) and the House (282-95). With his straight talk, thoughtful ad campaign, savvy targeting of Democrats in swing states and districts, personal appeals from the Oval Office, and the facts on his side, he convinced the American people and Congress that taxes were too high. The critical mass of thinking on tax levels enabled the historic Reagan tax cuts. (Obama's latest media efforts clearly reflect Reagan's and other Presidents efforts to leverage the bully pulpit of the Presidency).
So, back to the task at hand: gaining a critical mass of thinking on healthcare reform. The Framers of the Constitution assumed people would break into factions, and built a legislative body designed to cultivate and foster a critical mass of thinking among these factions. The Senate is especially built for this purpose, where Senators hold much more individual power and the majority can't simply impose their will on the entire chamber as is commonly done in the House. And on that side of the Capitol, Chairman Max Baucus and the Senate Finance Committee are currently engaged in putting the Framers' thoughtful legislative structure to work.
Chairman Baucus and the Committee are working through 500 Republican amendments, holding hearings and voting on each of them. And, in the midst of all of the noise on health care reform, an interesting thing is happening: they may be developing a critical mass of thinking. While most of these amendments were supposed to mock Democrats and score political points with the Republican base, these hearings are actually providing a legitimate forum for a thoughtful discourse on health care reform, a noted departure from the town hall screaming matches and shout-downs of August.
Hearings work when smart people, people with real world experiences, industry professionals and consumers who share a sincere desire to make change for the better, gather and share ideas and listen to one another. These hearings are doing just that. Of course, it remains to be seen if this mass of critical thinking moves beyond the walls of the Committee and onto the floor of the Senate when the full body debates healthcare reform. But the discussion alone should give us hope.