Universal Health Insurance? Why?

The Congressional health care debate has become a war between two seemingly irreconcilable extremes, coverage versus budget control. Health care is a right, thunders Bernie Sanders (I-VT). There’s no free lunch, roars back Rand Paul (R-KY). We think both sides miss the boat. Forcing health care into this simplistic left-right straitjacket misleads the nation. It is time to recast the issue properly. Public Investment Universal health insurance is better viewed as neither owed to us by government nor a govern­ment give-away; both labels misinform. A more insightful analogy is universal public edu­cation. Does government owe people a public education? Is universal public educa­tion a handout to “takers” who ought to go out and buy it on their own? Universal public education, for all its present shortcomings, is in fact a proven extra­ordinary public investment. An educated population provides both a more effective citizenry and a more productive workforce. That investment by government to improve our workforce returns far more to national prosperity than it costs in tax dollars. It promotes the general welfare while it puts money in our pockets. It is both right and smart. When universal public education was first proposed, many of the privileged might have said, what do you want to educate “those” people for, you are just throwing away our tax dollars; if people wish education for their children, let them go out and buy it … ignoring that many could not aff...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage ACA repeal and replace single payer Source Type: blogs