I was re-reading Tom Friedman’s book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded (Farrar, Straus and Girous, 2008). The part that started this train of thought was dealing with the US power grid and how it is made up of thousands of energy providers.each governed , primarily, by state laws. The implication to me was you could not get a coherent energy plan, even as basic as a national “Smart Grid” system by getting agreement state by state.
I see the same situation with the US healthcare system. While Federal reimbursement policy drives much of the system, the bulk of the regulation, particularly insurance regulation, is state by state. While the Affordable Care Act may mitigate some of this, currently health exchanges and Medicaid expansion are state by state. Why should poor people in one state get expanded Federal benefits, but not in another state?
There is a similar situation on K-12 education. The mantra of “Local Control”, with some state and local oversight leads to very inconsistent student results caused by inconsistent state by state curricula, teacher credentials and funding strategies. It is clear we are not keeping up with the rest of the world when educating our children.
I don’t want to start a constitutional fight about the rights of states versus the central government. However the founders viewed the Constitution, the country is very different now. We are much more inter-connected and interdependent.
We need a national perspective to our problems, not fifty perspectives. I view us as one country, not a collection of fifty states!
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