The College Fix

A man far smarter than I recently clarified for me the difference between “simple” and “easy.” Often used interchangeably, the distinction between the two is not only significant, but also conveniently serves as an effective lens through which to view the most pressing political challenges of the day. Allow me to illustrate.

Losing weight is simple.  Three steps.

1. Eat less.

2. Eat healthier.

3. Exercise more.

Losing weight is not easy. It requires a large amount of self-discipline, a substantial time commitment and is rarely a whole lot of fun.

Now, clearly, there is a fair amount of complexity to be bad in eating healthier (as witnessed by all the books, seminars and even professions associated with healthy eating), and the same goes for exercise, but even amid that complexity, what constitutes “healthy eating” is pretty self-evident—more fruits and vegetables, less carbohydrates, less junk food—and not very complex.

Also self-evident is that it is not easy. (And perhaps this explains in part why there are so many books, seminars and professions.) If it were easy, more people would do it, pure and simple.

Likewise, solving the budget deficit/national debt crisis is actually pretty simple.  Again, there are three steps:

1. Cut spending.

2. Raise taxes.

3. Reduce national health care costs.

If any of these things were easy, we wouldn’t be on the cusp of a government shutdown.

And because so much attention, both political and journalistic, has been given to the first two steps, let’s skip to step the third.

Washington Post blogger (and liberal wunderkind) Ezra Klein: “To make [health care] costs slow across the system, you need to make it cheaper to treat sick people.”

Founding Director of the Congressional Budget Office (and former vice chair of the Federal Reserve) Alice Rivlin: “I totally agree with that.”

Disappointingly, we have seen zero legislation that would actually target health care costs, specifically.  The ACA was a step in the right direction, but not nearly enough of the bill was aimed at the “health” part of “health care”.

I’ve got a hunch that the reason behind this is that reducing health care costs means that we all actually have to get healthier. Part of getting healthier is losing weight, which, as we previously went over, is simple, but not easy.

Yet, without addressing the “Reduce national health care costs” part of the deficit/debt crisis, the solution to said crisis will always seem extraordinarily complex.

It would be like trying to lose weight without eating healthy—ain’t gonna happen.

Zach Wahls is a columnist for the Daily Iowan. He is a contributor to the Student Free Press Association.

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