Pigs Starving Among Plenty of Food: Multiple-Choice Legislative Voting Needed for Healthcare Reform

The Times' Conserva-care opinion section this week made it clear that both Democrats and Conservatives believe healthcare could be improved and that both parties have good ideas about healthcare reform. So why has no reform happened after decades of attempts? The problem lies with a more general fault with our legislative system: by asking legislators to vote for or against each bill, no bill is likely to gather a majority of votes when dealing with a topic where there are many more than 2 competing proposals. The solution would be simple: switch voting from yes/no on individual bills to voting for the best among several competing solutions to the same problem. Each legislator could then vote for his/her favorite bill or for none (keeping the status quo), and the winner would become law. By revealing the true nature of a vote against a bill as a vote for a different solution to the same problem, this system would make it easier to pass laws where a majority of legislators agree a new law is needed but disagrees on the details of the solution. A related alternative system would send the two winners of any first round where the combined votes for competing bills outnumber votes for the status quo to a second round or ballotage for a final face-off. Our oversimplistic legislative system prevents progress in the face of many competing solutions just like a pig starves to death when unable to decide with of two equidistant piles of food to go toward.

How to group bills into competing proposals? Surely there are many ways. Here's one: Any time a bill gets introduced by a legislator, give the rest a period (30 days?) to come up with alternative proposals, which get submitted as an alternative solution to the same problem, or an alternative bill. The more alternative bills, the more competition, but also the lower the number of votes usually needed for one to win and become law, so there appears to be no disincentive for legislators to submit their bill as an alternative one.

Alex Backer, Ph.D.

For a related proposal to solve another problem derived from the same binary voting system, namely how to pass a balanced budget, read the author's http://alexbacker.pbworks.com/A-Better-Way-to-Balance-the-State-and-Federal-Budgets .