Good Writing and Health Care

Being concise is hard; saying what you want to say in the most compact form possible is what distinguishes great non-fiction writers from the rest (unfortunately, I currently land well with in the ‘rest’ zone.)

Take this article, about healthcare, for example:

Government Medical Care Always Becomes Political Medical Care

There is an incredible amount of argumentation and facts within this article; and it is less then 700 words long. In a short time the author: lists the various controls in the health care industry; explains why it doesn’t work; talks about the proper form of government; creates a parallel with the education system; and talks about the wider issue involved (with a few Thomas Jefferson quotes thrown in for good measure.)

What is incredible is that the article doesn’t suffer from all this information; it comes of as a completed and balanced piece of work. The clarity he achieves is fantastic. Just read this:

Only the government can maintain armed forces to protect us from the threat of foreign force, and only the government can maintain the police and the courts to protect individuals from the use of force by criminals. But it does not follow that government should use force to rule every aspect of our lives. Those who say that government should seize control of all of our medical care are ultimately advocating the elimination of all restraint on government.

I hope some day; I am able to achieve the same clarity and conciseness in my own writing. Unfortunately, with a blog name like “Ryan’s Rantings”, I might have doomed myself to failure.