Health-Care Delivery: Flex Credits

Pragmatism is the lowliest of virtues. It does not inspire great works of literature, soaring rhetoric or killer quotes. Linus Torvalds’ take on it is as good as it gets: “I’m generally a very pragmatic person,” the open-source software pioneer once opined. “That which works works.”

And yet pragmatism is an essential ingredient of business success or good government. When it comes to the evolution of health care, Premier Darrell Dexter, to his credit, has put his pragmatic foot forward since taking power. Qualms about expanding private-sector involvement in the delivery of services have given way to practical considerations about cost-effectiveness and getting results on the ground.