Funding Health Care For All Americans: An Economic Perspective
By Victor Fuchs and John Shoven
Summary: This paper shows that a substantial change in the U.S. approach to funding is central to any sustainable, comprehensive reform of health care. This change must cover all Americans with insurance that provides a decent standard of care while maintaining control of expenditures. To succeed, reform must lead to efficiency in medical practice, eliminate lapses in quality, and tame but not destroy the development and diffusion of new medical technologies. The success of reform will depend on an approach to funding that covers all Americans for basic care; restrains expenditure growth to a rate the public is willing and able to pay for; and does so in an equitable and efficient way.
Key Concepts: Quality health care, health care delivery systems, comparative effectiveness in health care, managing health care inflation
Read Funding Health Care For All Americans: An Economic Perspective (pdf).