From Conflict to Convergence: Coming Together to Solve Tough Problems

CHAPTER 1Why Solve Problems Together?

One day in November 2006, during the lunch break of an all-day meeting, Carla Willis grabbed a moment to chat with Rob, one on one.

Carla had been taking part in a series of two-day meetings over two years with leaders from organizations representing the nation's doctors, hospitals, drug manufacturers, insurance companies, employers, consumers, and workers. They were joined by policy experts from left, middle, and right. The formal name of the project was Health Care Coverage for the Uninsured. Sometimes the participants referred to it as the “strange bedfellows on health care” project.¹

They'd all come together to work out how to insure as many Americans as possible who didn't have healthcare coverage, as quickly as possible. Every person at the table had come with their own ideas, interests, assumptions, and proposals. In fact, most of them disagreed, and quite a lot—some for years, others for decades. It had been a long haul. Rob, who was directing the project, had worked with the project team to ensure that the widest possible range of stakeholders were seated at the table. This day marked session number 11.

AGREEING ON THE PROBLEM

At the start, the group agreed on one thing: they were trying to tackle a major challenge. Stuart Butler, then director of domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, the leading conservative think tank in Washington, DC, who was at the meetings, remembered the acrimony hanging in the air:

This was a nearly ...