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HR 3200 Considered As Software
bfwebster writes "Independent of one's personal opinions regarding the desirability and forms of government-mandated health care reform, there exists the question of how well HR 3200 (or any other legislation) will actually achieve that end and what the unintended (or even intended) consequences may be. There are striking similarities between crafting software and creating legislation, including risks and pitfalls — except that those risks and pitfalls are greater in legislation. I've written an article (first of a three-part series) examining those parallels and how these apply to HR 3200."
From the article:
Heh. HR 3200 "represents the worst excesses of the waterfall development lifecycle"? I love it.
It's a valid point, though. I am deeply suspicious of "big bang" plans in either software development or legislation.
So, how do we apply "agile" software development practices to legislation? All I can think of is: develop a new system in the small (pick one or a few states to try it) and establish a time box, and evaluate whether the legislation accomplishes its goals, then decide whether to spread it to more states, scrap it and start over, or what. That seems like a great idea to me.
President Obama has promised that, if passed, this will simultaneously expand health care coverage to everyone; improve the care everyone gets; and lower costs for everyone. Once a few states have adopted this and all those promises prove out to be true, then everyone will see how well it works and there won't be a bitter political battle to adopt it.
Unless of course it turns out that the promises are not in fact kept, and it doesn't work as planned. Then we will have been spared from putting 1/6 of our economy through a disaster.
Agile law development for the win.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
That is your sig and you are suggesting kieth olbermann?
Does it hurt your head to have that much doublethink going on?
No... it has been long established that "promotion of the general welfare" is subservient to the other restrictions that are explicitly laid out in the Constitution. In other words, the Federal Government can promote the general welfare all it wants... as long as it does so only in the ways otherwise authorized by the Constitution. That phrase was (according to the debates at the time, mentions in the Federalist Papers, etc.) never intended to authorize anything that was not allowed by the rest of the document.
Further, the "necessary and proper" clause was intended in a similar way and must meet two criteria: (1) it does not allow operating outside the explicit restrictions, and (2) anything justified under the "necessary and proper" clause must be LESSER than anything allowed by the explicit restrictions. For example: it might be "necessary and proper" to build a structure adequate to house the House and Senate, so that they may do their jobs. It would not, however, be allowable to spend even more money building roads directly from the houses of each Senator and Representative to those buildings. The "necessary and proper" clause is one that has been grossly abused, by being used far outside any meaning it ever really had.
The Constitution was intended to limit the power of the federal government. By any reading of the Constitution that allows the federal government to control the funding for healthcare in the entire U.S., there are no limits on the power of the federal government. Of course there are many other things that the federal government has done that are, also, outside of any reading of the Constitution that limits the power of the federal government.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Olbermann he is ONE OF THE VERY FEW that attacks BOTH sides. (can you produce 3 videolinks of FOX news or glen beck criticizing bush ?)
Well, I'm no fan of Beck, but, well... yea:
Yea, so what?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia