As a marathoner, I’ve been known to throw a few running metaphors around, so I take note when others do as well. If some journalists and bloggers are right, it appears that the fate of health care reform may depend on what happens when legislators hit the proverbial “Wall.”

In today’s New York Times, David Herszenhorn (in “Baucus Grabs Pacesetter Role on Health Bill”) builds off Senator Max Baucus’s history with ultramarathoning in explaining the mammoth legislative battle of health care reform.

“In many ways, the push to overhaul health care is a legislative ultramarathon. And however improbable it might seem, Mr. Baucus, son of a rancher and great-grandson of a member of the Cowboy Hall of Fame, is setting the pace.”

Herszenhorn concludes the piece with a parallel between the pain and endurance required for both marathoning and health care reform, citing comments of OMB Director Peter Orzag:

“Mr. Orszag, who has agonized over health care costs for years, noted the Montana senator’s penchant for pain. “I am struck,” Mr. Orszag said, “by how he describes this as fun.”

In her blog post last week, “The Week in Health Reform - Hitting a Speed Bump,” Jocelyn Guyer of the Georgetown Health Policy Institute’s Center for Children & Families, concluded with a Boston Marathon metaphor:

“We may be heading up Heartbreak Hill, but the marathon of health reform is far from over.”

I’m sure these aren’t the the first two pundits to compare the federal legislative process to a marathon, and health care has obvious connections because of the physical and mental health and challenges associated with marathoning. The arduous and grinding task of continuous strenuous effort definitely is reminiscent of the pain one endures during the course of a 26.2 mile effort on foot.

For those of us who lived through the 1993-94 health reform marathon, all the preparation appeared to make some sort of health care reform an inevitability before legislators figuratively “bonked” when they hit the Wall. The early mistakes in the health reform run eventually caught up to the Clinton administration, ultimately resulting in  a DNF (did not finish).

Now, after years more training under our collective belts, leaders appear to be well hydrated and much better prepared, having learned lessons that one can only truly understand by doing it wrong before. But many factors often crop up in a marathon that you know may transpire but still reduce you to a long slog — the blazing sun and 86-degree weather of the 2004 Boston Marathon come to mind for me. Payment reform, debate about the role of government, and new tax policy appear to be the weather front coming our way.

The key on Patriot’s Day 2004 was to keep repeating in my mind a single mantra: “Keep putting one foot in front of another.” It sure was no PR. I lost about 30 minutes that day. But I eventually got to the finish line on Boylston Street.

Whatever people think about the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the story Herszenhorn tells about Senator Baucus completing the JFK 50-Miler with a gash across his forehead suggests that he has no shortage of perseverance and fortitude as he persists in the enormous undertaking of health care reform.

Let’s hope that legislators cross the finish line in the mold of Frank Shorter in 1972 or Joan Benoit Samuelson in 1984, and we don’t recreate the parable of Pheidippides along the way.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Health Care Reform. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.