The case for Health Care
ILLUSTRATED: In the Free Agent Age, government must provide the platform of benefits that employers used to provide.
The Democrats' chief problem in selling health care is quite ironic. Even as it becomes clearer and clearer that employers will not provide the same benefits as before, most people (indeed even a greater proportion of voters) feel insured. The general economic instability makes people cling to what they have, and fear change.
The back story is this: in the Industrial Age, scale gave a company advantage, so big companies dominated. Thanks to the Labor Movement, big companies provided benefits to help care for our families. The Information Age will require companies to be slim, smart, and speedy. More people will become independent consultants. Only the government can provide the benefits they need in the form of a public insurer or seeding non-profit risk pools.
As for the moral argument, it was summed up in 1988 by Mike Dukakis when he said that the first thing an American should hear in a hospital is "Where does it hurt, not how will you pay?" But the moral argument only reaches so many people. The economic argument is that entrepreneurial energy is limited by an inefficient health care system. Combining both, a grerat business idea should not be stopped by a cancerous cell.
The Democrats' chief problem in selling health care is quite ironic. Even as it becomes clearer and clearer that employers will not provide the same benefits as before, most people (indeed even a greater proportion of voters) feel insured. The general economic instability makes people cling to what they have, and fear change.
The back story is this: in the Industrial Age, scale gave a company advantage, so big companies dominated. Thanks to the Labor Movement, big companies provided benefits to help care for our families. The Information Age will require companies to be slim, smart, and speedy. More people will become independent consultants. Only the government can provide the benefits they need in the form of a public insurer or seeding non-profit risk pools.
As for the moral argument, it was summed up in 1988 by Mike Dukakis when he said that the first thing an American should hear in a hospital is "Where does it hurt, not how will you pay?" But the moral argument only reaches so many people. The economic argument is that entrepreneurial energy is limited by an inefficient health care system. Combining both, a grerat business idea should not be stopped by a cancerous cell.
posted by Teka Thomas at 9:38 PM
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