I'm not sure how many of you have seen this, but Billy Beane has a column in the New York Times on how to fix the American health care system.  And he co-authored it with Newt Gingrich.  And John Kerry.  Huh.

It's an interesting concept to think of our health care system being run based on stats-based evidence and research.  I wonder if it means we're going to have a new measure for doctors, something like accurate diagnosis created (number of times poked with a needle + incorrect lab tests ordered + number of minutes spent in waiting room + number of trips to the physician required/number of days of pain free relief).  And VORIP (value over replacement insurance provider) which could be something like Number of times request to see a specialist rejected+number of times forced to use a generic medicine+number of times refusal to pay for unauthorized emergency hospital stay/number of times insurance company doesn't hassle you about something they should cover.  I imagine the league average for both these things would be pretty low.

Regardless, I thought it was an interesting alignment of people on the op-ed and Beane is correct in emphasizing common sense and stats analysis used in health care.  I suppose I can understand Beane being frustrated with the current system.  If anyone has experience in baseball using health care over the last two years, it's the A's.