Krugman's solution for employment-based health insurance
Pride, Prejudice, Insurance
By Paul Krugman
The New York Times
November 7, 2005
Employment-based health insurance is the only serious source of coverage for Americans too young to receive Medicare and insufficiently destitute to receive Medicaid, but it’s an institution in decline. Between 2000 and 2004 the number of Americans under 65 rose by 10 million. Yet the number of nonelderly Americans covered by employment-based insurance fell by 4.9 million.
The funny thing is that the solution - national health insurance, available to everyone - is obvious. But to see the obvious we’ll have to overcome pride - the unwarranted belief that America has nothing to learn from other countries - and prejudice - the equally unwarranted belief, driven by ideology, that private insurance is more efficient than public insurance.
The U.S. system is much more bureaucratic, with much higher administrative costs, than those of other countries, because private insurers and other players work hard at trying not to pay for medical care.
The economic and moral case for health care reform in America, reform that would make us less different from other advanced countries, is overwhelming.
One of these days we’ll realize that our semiprivatized system isn’t just unfair, it’s far less efficient than a straightforward system of guaranteed health insurance.
http://select.nytimes.com/2005/11/07/opinion/07krugman.html?hp
Comment: Although most are familiar with Paul Krugman’s column in The New York Times, some may not be aware that he is a Professor of Economics at Princeton. He received his Ph.D. from MIT, and has taught at Princeton, Yale, MIT and Stanford. The point is that he thoroughly understands the economic case for national health insurance. Our task is to make sure that everyone else does too.