The Sabermetrics of Health Care

Steve Van Hooser posted (an Facebook) a link to an interesting opinion article. This piece, which was published yesterday in the New York Times, was co-authored by Newt Gingrich, John Kerry, and (Oakland Athletics general manager) Billy Beane. Their point is a simple one: Let's use more statistical evidence to support the canonical reliance on 'expert opinions' (analogous to scouts) that essentially just call things as they see them. What one really needs is both of these things. (Yes, the US Health Care system was just compared to teams like the Baltimore Orioles that spend a lot of money but don't get very much for them. Or, to put it another way, our Health Care system has done a lot of things that are morally equivalent to overpaying for stiffs like Andruw Jones and Juan Pierre. It's an obvious observation, but I never really framed it using precisely that analogy before. Clearly, I should have.)