In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, Dr. Marty Makary and Dr. Mehmet Oz — now leading the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, respectively — touted a rare policy win: getting major beverage companies to agree to phase out harmful artificial dyes by 2027. And they didn’t do it through regulation, but by cooperation with the private sector. Call it the art of the deal, applied to public health.

“We can better serve the public,” they write, “by using our convening power to drive meaningful change that is nimble, durable, and faster.” That principle should be a blueprint for future reform, especially when our nation’s health crisis has become too urgent for the red tape that has come to define its handling.