Solutions Only Work if They are Effectively Implemented

One might think, from reading Walter Addiego's review in today's San Francisco Chronicle that Matthew Heineman's new documentary, Escape Fire: The Fight to Rescue American Healthcare, is a good thing. He writes approvingly:

The film is surprisingly optimistic, arguing that there are genuine, practical answers to many of the problems afflicting the system, and some are already being adopted.

However, on the basis of Addiego's review, it would appear that was focusing entirely on the nuts and bolts of healthcare itself, rather than the context set by the "industrial" practices of insurance and hospital management (whose directorates often interlock).

One is reminded of another documentary, Who Killed the Electric Car? In this case the point was that we had the scientific and engineering foundations for an electric car decades ago, along with many enthusiastic promoters. (There was footage of Tom Hanks in the documentary waxing lovingly over an electric car he owned.) However, at that time the oil industry was powerful enough to quash all competition; and we can rest assured that both insurance and hospital management will see any proposal by Heineman as a competition to be eliminated by any means necessary. After all, isn't that the American way?