Thursday, April 3, 2008

A Single-Payer System isn't Magic 

How single-payer advocates are like six-year-olds

By Marc Kilmer

Filed As:  Health Care

The Baltimore Examiner published my op-ed today on problems with single-payer health care. In it I note that single-payer advocates rightly talk about the problems posed by having insurance companies as a barrier between patients and doctors. But I point out that a single-payer system will not magically produce an infinite amount of health care. In such a system, there will still be a need to ration care, so government bureaucrats will be a barrier between patient and doctor. Only a health care system that is more consumer-focused will help with this problem, since the patient will have more power to decide his or her own care.

• posted by Marc Kilmer
• 1:04 pm
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