We asked some leading thinkers in California to begin this online conversation about covering the uninsured by considering the following questions:
Should all Americans be required to purchase health insurance? What options for coverage should the uninsured and under-insured have, and how do you assess when coverage is affordable?
Posts
The Elephant in the Room
Why is it that my students get it, attendees to my talks get it, readers of KQED get it, yet New York Times reporter David Leonhardt doesn’t get it?
Thoughts on Affordability and the Public Plan Option
I think the better model of public plan is home grown: California’s local County Organized Health Systems and Local Initiatives… Health care is local, and these plans are far more able to adjust to local conditions than a large multi-state insurer or Medicare can…
Single-Payer and Group Coverage Empower Government, Not the People
I agree with Professor Chaufan that the “reforms” many states embraced to expand coverage with private insurance have failed, but disagree that it is because of a lack of government power. In fact, such reforms massively increase government power…
Not Change We Can Believe In
Don’t get me wrong. I am not against electronic medical records, preventive medicine, eating your broccoli and not smoking, or researching what really works in medicine. All else equal, they are wonderful things. But is there any reason to believe that all or any of these things will, for instance, increase our purchasing power so that health care becomes affordable and can be universally guaranteed, as it is everywhere else in the industrialized world?
Expanding Group Coverage is the First Step
In order to level the playing field, government should not just be regulator, but a negotiator and/or a competitor. That’s the hope of the “public health insurance option” that has been discussed in health policy circles…
We Must Subsidize Insurance Before We Can Mandate
The bigger challenge for federal reform efforts is designing a new structure for coverage of the flex workforce — the temps, provisionals, part timers and contract workers as well as the lower income, self-employed and micro-businesses…
It’s Not a Question of How, But of Political Will
The big question is how do we get from here (6.5 growing to 7 million uninsured) to there (coverage for everyone) in the midst a severe economic downturn that highlights the need for major reforms yet hamstrings our financial capacity to pay for care…
Mandatory Health Insurance is Not Universal Choice
“Covering the uninsured” through more government power is a misplaced priority. It gives politicians, instead of patients, control of health-care dollars…
The Uninsured Are the Symptom, Not the Disease
The problem is that to answer these questions I have to challenge fundamental assumptions underlying them…[t]hey all assume that the problem is the uninsured or the underinsured. But these are only the “symptom”. The real “disease” is the financial organization of our system…
Not Just Getting Coverage, But Keeping It
I start with the assumption that the vast majority of Americans—including those that are uninsured—want health care coverage. They know that being uninsured means living sicker, dying younger, and being one emergency away from financial ruin…