Monday, July 03, 2006
Opinion
"Many proponents, as well as opponents, of health care reform equate universal coverage with a Canadian-style, government-run, single-payer system," but "a survey of successful health care systems around the world shows this is an incorrect assumption," Steven Hill, a director of the New America Foundation, writes in a San Jose Mercury News opinion piece. According to Hill, a number of nations without a single-payer health care system -- such as Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands -- provide universal health coverage and quality health care "at a fraction of what we pay" in the U.S. Hill writes that the health care systems in those nations share "many similarities with the recent bipartisan health care legislation passed in Massachusetts that mandates a 'shared responsibility' between employees, employers and the government," adding that the "key difference is that the Massachusetts plan does not include cost controls, which understandably are difficult to enact on a state level." Hill writes, "The evidence is clear that cost controls are extremely important to any successful health care system," and "the experiences of the public-private hybrid systems in France, Germany, Belgium, Japan and elsewhere show that it is possible to have your cake and eat it too." The "take-home lesson for health care reformers is that it is important to expand the debate and recognize that universal health coverage does not mean single-payer," Hill adds (Hill, San Jose Mercury News, 6/30).
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