Health Care Reform And The Bridge

Mary Theroux had an interesting opinion piece in the San Francisco Examiner (11/9/09). “After last week’s Bay Bridge failure, Bay Area residents would do well to consider the obvious parallel. If the government can’t build a bridge that keeps us safe, can it really be trusted with the future of American health care?”

An upper deck section of the eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge had collapsed during the 1989 earthquake. This section was repaired in a month, but it was necessary to make the eastern span earthquake resistant. The refit and repairs were estimated to cost about $200M and take about 4 years.

But then, after lengthy discussion and analysis, a suggestion was made in 1999 that a new bridge span would be better than just retrofitting the old one. Keeping the new bridge design simple would not increase the cost too much; the life expectancy of the new span would be 2-3 times longer than the old one; and maintenance costs would decrease. Sounded good.

Unfortunately, some people thought the simple design was not distinctive or dramatic enough and a committee was appointed.

The bridge span is still not finished; the cost is up around six billion dollars; tolls have continued to increase; the cost has continued to increase; a major crack was found and repaired in September; and this repair recently failed and had to be re-repaired earlier this month.

Mary Theroux’s other question: “How much faith do you have that a politically appointed committee in Washington, D.C., can determine what’s best?”

Bay Bridge, Bay Bridge costs, Bay Bridge problems, Mary Theroux, Oakland Bay Bridge, health care committee, health care reform