Opinion Pieces Examine Proposed Health Insurance Reforms
Two opinion pieces recently examined health insurance coverage in the U.S. Summaries appear below.
- Ronald Brownstein, Los Angeles Times: Although "more than 174 million workers and their families receive" health insurance through their employers, the "system is cracking" as fewer small employers offer coverage and as large employers say the rising cost of health care in the U.S. is hurting their ability to compete in the global marketplace, columnist Brownstein writes in a Times opinion piece. Disparate individuals -- including labor leaders and Republicans -- are beginning to consider alternatives to employer-based health insurance, possibly a single-payer government system or a mandate requiring individuals to purchase coverage, Brownstein writes. He adds that critics have not yet "assembled an irrefutable case against the employer-based system" and that "refurbishing it might well make more sense than dismantling it." However, "[a]ny replacement system would need to guarantee affordability and preserve the sharing of risk," he says. Regardless, the fact that leaders across the political spectrum are raising questions about employer-based coverage is "an encouraging sign that the nation finally may be ready to re-examine a health care system that costs too much and covers to0 few," Brownstein concludes (Brownstein, Los Angeles Times, 6/25).
- Doug Moore, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: It is a "laudable and important goal to reduce the number of uninsured" U.S. residents, but the "best method for achieving this goal" is "tax credits for lower-income individuals," not universal health care, Moore, an agency principal at Seubert & Associates and legislative chair of the Pittsburgh chapter of the National Association of Health Underwriters, writes in a Post-Gazette opinion piece. According to Moore, those who believe that a "single-payer system will solve the problems of our health care system ... are wrong" because such a system would "guarantee that health care services need to be rationed to control costs." In addition, he writes, a single-payer system would compel higher-income patients to purchase health care services that are "out of reach to lower-income Americans" and would decrease provider reimbursements while increasing taxes. By contrast, Moore says, the employer-based system of health insurance delivery "continues to provide the best vehicle for delivering health insurance to Americans today and in the years to come" and provides a good opportunity to lower health care costs through workplace disease prevention programs (Moore, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 6/24).