Tuesday, October 6, 2009

The Economic Case for Single-Payer Health Care Reform

I make the case for single-payer health reform over at the PoliProf Blog:
"The only way that we can bring health care spending under control, and therefore be able to provide coverage to everyone, is if we move beyond our aversion to government intervention. Only government can effectively allocate our health care resources in a manner the responds to need rather than wealth. Only government can establish an annual health care budget and ensure that facilities and providers abide by the annual limits. Only government can effect our transition from a system driven by the perverse incentive to deliver care as a means to generate revenue to a system based on the proper management of care in order to conserve resources. The logical approach would be to restructure Medicare and make it universal. And it must be universal. The only way to get the public on board, and to accept the change, is to have us all in the same system, all guaranteed the same level of care, all sharing the same resources. This is what other nations do, and what we must do."