Harris Interactive
Health Care News
Volume 3, Issue 16
October 27, 2003
Table 3
Should Health Care be a Public Good (Entitlement) or a Private Economic Good?
Do you think public policy should treat health care and health insurance more as an entitlement like education, police and fire protection and highways or more as a kind of product or service, like cars, house, food and clothes, or homeowners insurance where you get what you can afford and want to pay for?
65% – Entitlement
23% – As a kind of product
12% – not sure
In all western democracies, there are substantial public sector and private sector health care providers and insurers. Of course, all the other western democracies provide some form of universal health insurance. What is less well known in America is that they also allow people (with some exceptions) to buy additional health insurance and medical care with their own money.
However, in every other western democracy a reasonable level of health insurance is seen as a right, something to which citizens are entitled. So in every country including the United States, health care is of course both an entitlement (for some people) as well as a private economic good. The question is should it tilt more one way or the other. In other countries, it clearly tilts heavily toward being more of an entitlement. Most Americans clearly agree with most Europeans and Canadians that health care could be thought of more as an entitlement or public good than as a private economic good.
http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/newsletters/healthnews/HI_HealthCareNews2003Vol3_Iss16.pdf
Comment: The opponents of comprehensive health care proposals frequently
argue that Americans are fundamentally different, that Americans reject the
egalitarian concept that everyone should have reasonable access to affordable health care. They contend that we are a nation of individuals, each driven to provide for his or her own individual needs. Only the rare individual who is totally incapable of being a productive individual is entitled to support through a collective government or private charity channel, they argue.
This poll and last week’s ABC News/Washington Post poll both confirm that
Americans are not fundamentally different. The majority of us do believe
that the government should ensure that everyone has access to an adequate
level of health care services.
Never again can we allow a debate to end with the argument that we are different, that we are less caring for our fellow Americans than are the people of other nations for their own. That specious argument has been refuted.
The debate must instead start with the premise that we do care. The debate now must center over the various models of comprehensive reform which might accomplish our goals.