U.S. Should Move Away From Employer-Based Health Care Coverage, Op-Ed States

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 16 Oct 2007 - 11:00 PDT

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As the U.S. "prepares for the next great debate on its ailing health care system, support is growing for a shift from the traditional employer-based financing to publicly subsidized individual health insurance," Washington Post columnist David Broder writes in an opinion piece. He cites a report from the Committee for Economic Development to be released this week that will "give a strong push to the idea" by saying "in blunt terms that business can no longer afford to pay the rising costs and lacks the clout to curb the forces that are driving health care inflation."

The report "outlines a two-step solution, aimed at producing a competitive marketplace with broad individual choices," according to Broder. First, "the federal government would establish independent regional 'exchanges' through which individuals would purchase one of many competing private insurance plans," and second, "every family would receive a fixed-dollar credit, sufficient to pay the premium on the basic, low-cost plan in its region, so it could be insured without cost to the family budget," Broder writes.

"Converting to such a system would be controversial," he continues, adding, "But the growing sense in business that only a mass marketplace of individuals can apply the competitive pressure needed to discipline the forces of medical inflation is moving the country in that direction." Broder concludes, "It should be at the center of the coming health care debate" (Broder, Washington Post, 10/14).

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