There are plenty of policy wonks who want to eliminate private insurers completely and adopt a single-payer health system.
Maggie Mahar takes a more reasonable approach, acknowledging that innovative solutions can indeed come from the private sector. She cites Seattle’s Group Health, who have found a way for doctors to financially survive seeing only 10 patients a day.
A hybrid public-private solution is the approach an Obama administration is likely to take, and she points out that “keeping honest insurers in the mix should ensure greater variety [of innovative solutions].”
Working with, and not working to eliminate, the private sector is necessary for any health reform plan going forward.
Inflexbile single-payer supporters who fail to realize that will risk fading away into irrelevence.
Related posts:
- Administrative costs and single-payer
- Gawande on health reform: "It is not single-payer"
- Rumble in the health reform jungle
- How the primary care doctor shortage threatens Obama’s health reform plan
- Why are health insurers supporting Democrats?
- Is Physicians for a National Health Program the biggest threat to Obama’s health reform plan?
- The make-believe savings of single-payer
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No. We should eliminate the private sector from everything. Not just health insurance but all forms of insurance and commerce. Businessmen are greedy, dishonest, and corrupt. Government is reliably honest, beneficient, and efficient. Get rid of wasteful variation in the marketplace. Find out what is the most efficient automobile for urban transportation and produce only that one. The government could define the ideal standard meal and produce only that product in it’s restaurants. Everyone would be healthy and happy and their would be no problems in society.
From what I know about the Netherlands’ health system, the private and public sectors work together well. However, it’s hard for me to be optimistic about the private sector cooperating unless the situation is something like the misnamed ‘Medicare Advantage’ (which seems advantageous only to the insurance companies). YMMV.
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