Moon-landing model

It wasn't too many years back that President John F. Kennedy announced a very ambitious national goal, to land a man on the moon and safely bring him back. All of this was to be accomplished within the next decade. There seemed no question at the time that such an achievement would require the very best possible technical expertise. In the end, the moon landing and return were successful because every last detail of the mission had been reviewed by experts in their respective fields (not by politicians).

But today we are attempting another ambitious national goal, that of universal health care. That goal may be just as difficult and technically challenging as our space ventures, yet there is absolutely no certainty that the final "plan" would be done by, or even reviewed by, legitimate experts in such matters so that we aren't foolishly trying to "reinvent the wheel." Many nations in the world have had universal health care for years and any new plan that we create should take full advantage of that vast experience.

What is totally ludicrous is that, if we handled the 1960s moon mission in the same way we are handling today's universal health plan, we would have been arguing as to whose "launch plan" we should use, the Democrats or the Republicans.

 

WILLIAM McCARTHY
West Mifflin