Respected health care analyst Jeff Goldsmith has a great post over at The Health Care Blog, in which he makes the following point about mandated universal coverage:
To simply assume that extending coverage to the 47 million uninsured somehow assures access and, therefore, better health, requires multiple leaps of faith. There are many physical, cultural and economic barriers separating “coverage” from “access”.
Mandates don’t have magical powers. Seems reasonable. So, what does he suggest?
Rather than focusing on unaffordable mandates and massive tax-based subsidies, extending coverage should focus on affordability (vitally important for the more than ten million younger uninsured) and ease of access to multiple insurance options …
In other words, treat the disease rather than the symptom. Why is it that so many “progressive” analysts have such difficulty absorbing something so obvious?
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