Six steps to bring about true health-care reform in Utah - Salt Lake Tribune

Six steps to bring about true health-care reform in Utah - Salt Lake Tribune:

Dr. Joe Jarvis of Utah has written a nice opinion piece for the Salt lake Tribune identifying six important areas to address in health care reform discussions. Some I have addressed here in the past, such as the Moral hazard myth. His number one is:

"Health underwriting: Every critically ill or injured person will be treated in our health system whether they have health insurance or not. Therefore, we should not waste resources trying to identify persons likely to have critical illness in order to exclude them by price or refusal from acquiring health financing. Community rating, guaranteed issue and risk-sharing will increase health system efficiency and eliminate the unfunded mandate that is cost-sharing."

After seeing the Frontline Sick Around the World Program and web site, and also after attending the Single Payer Debate at Duquesne University earlier this year, it may be that the path to reform in the US might have to be the path of Bismarckian universal healthcare. It seemed that even the far right Fraser Institute's spokesman at the debate was willing to grant that this might be a reasonable way to provide universal access in the US and not violating the hard charging laissez-faire types ideology too badly.

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