The Biggest Roadblock to Change May Be in Our Minds

Miller-McCune by Tom Jacobs | Nov. 3, 2009 (News Analysis)
An overlooked component of the health care debate is our tendency to justify the status quo.

When you step back from the specifics of the health care debate — as well as the rancor surrounding it — an odd contradiction emerges.

Fairly or not, insurance companies have traditionally been regarded with a combination of contempt and scorn. Yet the president's proposal to change the nation's system of health care coverage — which would put restrictions on some of the companies' more egregious practices and provide increased competition ... Full Story »

Posted by Fabrice Florin - via Miller-McCune

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Derek Hawkins
3.6
 by Derek Hawkins - Nov. 14, 2009

Some fascinating reporting about the mechanisms in our brain that lead us to accept the status quo, however flawed it may be, as just and good. This looks at the social psychology of health care reform and offers interesting perspective on why some Americans may have so violently rejected it.

people are motivated to justify and rationalize the way things are, so that existing social, economic and political arrangements tend to be perceived as fair and legitimate."

In other words, it’s less stressful to live in a society you perceive as just, even if it’s an illusion. Thus we are all descendents of Dr. Pangloss, the character in Candide who insisted we live in “the best of all possible worlds.”

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