A National Health Insurance Program for the United States – The country must abandon its fragmented system
By Don R. McCanne
PLoS Medicine – November 2004
The continuing deterioration of affordability, coverage, and quality in health care makes it imperative that United States policymakers broaden their reform efforts beyond the ineffectual tinkering of incrementalism. A universal, single-payer, publicly funded and publicly administered program of social insurance would ensure access to affordable, comprehensive, high-quality health care for all. It should be the standard by which any other proposals are judged. If a better proposal can be crafted, now is the time to do it. People are dying while we delay.
http://medicine.plosjournals.org/archive/1549-1676/1/2/pdf/10.1371_journal.pmed.0010039-S.pdf
Comment: This article discusses the characteristics of the U.S. health care system that result in mediocrity in spite of our very high spending. And then it discusses options for reform.
As an open access journal, readers are encouraged to download articles and use them for their own purposes. Some may find this article to be useful in educating the public on the rationale of national health insurance.
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