According to professor David W. Galenson there's hope for us old guys who still want to make a contribution to society. I was listening to Dr. Galenson's lecture at an event where an organization called Civic Ventures was awarding The Purpose Prise to a group of baby-boomers who, unlike me, were taking on society's biggest challenges. It was inspiring. One of Galenson's insights that I thought was particularly interesting was this idea of two fundamentally different approaches to innovation; one the deductive "flash of brilliance" sort and the other the painstaking, gradual, cumulative, inductive sort that comes with the wisdom of a lifetime experience. He speaks of those of us in the later category feeling "stupid" in their youth at not being easily able to learn by the deductive method. This was my experience exactly and its somehow very encouraging to learn that I'm not alone.
I subscribe to e-mails from The White House (like the one below) to keep track of what they are actually saying. Normally their e-mails are recitations of the President's talking points and don't add anything meaningful. However, this time David Simas was soliciting input to prove their case that the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare") is actually working. So, since I involuntarily have new health coverage as of January 1 (that's what The White House was asking for) I decided to submit my own "story." Here's what I submitted: I am retired. I pay for Medicare but I don't rely on it for quality health care. I have new coverage as of January 1st which I was forced to purchase privately as an individual. I believe I was driven to this largely by one of the unintended consequences of Obamacare which is that large employers will now more easily drop retiree group medical plans (to pay for other costs of Obamacare) citing Obamacare as the backstop for t...
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