Editorials, Opinion Pieces Address U.S. Health Care System

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 30 Oct 2007 - 9:00 PDT

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Summaries of several editorials and opinion pieces related to health care reform appear below.

Editorials

• Wall Street Journal: All health care systems "impose limits on consumption," but a single-payer system "would remove any hint of the price mechanism," a move that would "vastly inflate health spending and lead to tax hikes or otherwise lead to government rationing" or both, a Journal editorial states. According to the editorial, a recent study conducted by Benjamin Zycher, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a former senior economist for the White House Council of Economic Advisors, indicates that "the real economic costs of moving to single payer would be at least twice those of today's semi-market patchwork" and that "the adverse effects of the increased taxation required for 'Medicare for all' more than outweigh the potential efficiencies" (Wall Street Journal, 10/29).
  
  
• Washington Times: The three major Republican presidential candidates have offered health care proposals that "seek to gradually shift the burden from employer-provided health insurance to a system that would require families to use tax incentives to obtain health insurance from the private market," but "none of them has estimated the costs," a Times editorial states. In addition, the candidates "will have to offer far more substantive arguments" in support of their health care proposals than the "throwaway lines" that they have used to date, according to the editorial (Washington Times, 10/28).
  

Opinion Pieces

• Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), Atlanta Journal-Constitution: The U.S. should "fuse the best" of the public and private sectors to "provide health care to the American people," McDermott writes in a Journal-Constitution opinion piece. According to McDermott, the "fundamental role of government is to protect and serve the people, and the fundamental role of business is to produce a profit and serve its shareholders." McDermott writes that government "can provide the leadership and free the private sector to provide the services, innovation and efficiency" through a health insurance proposal that "creates a national risk pool" (McDermott, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 10/29).
  
  
• Michael Hochman/David Himmelstein, Baltimore Sun: More U.S. physicians are "calling for meaningful change" to the health care system "in the form of a single-payer system" because they spend "countless hours filling out unnecessary insurance forms" and often have to "listen to patients complain about the complexities and hassles of navigating" the current system, Hochman, a member of the Massachusetts chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, and Himmelstein, co-founder of the organization, write in a Sun opinion piece. They write that the major presidential candidates, none of whom support of a single-payer health care system, have "put forth a creative array of meaningless, incremental reforms that would do little for our failing system." According to the authors, without a "political thrust for single payer," the U.S. will "face a future of more wasteful spending, more inefficiency -- and ever more Americans struggling to get by without health insurance" (Hochman/Himmelstein, Baltimore Sun, 10/29).
  
  
• Montel Williams, Baltimore Sun: "One key to correcting our present course" of problems with the U.S. health care system is "finding ways to motivate businesses, universities, civic clubs and other groups with a stake in good health to support the reforms that seem likely to correct the worst flaws in the nation's medical system," Williams, a talk show host and national spokesperson for Partnership for Prescription Assistance, writes in a Sun opinion piece. He adds that U.S. residents "need straight talks from politicians -- and especially our presidential candidates" about proposals to address the problems. Williams concludes that "individual citizens must also begin accepting responsibility for changing their bad health habits" and that "it will require the combined efforts of individuals, government, nonprofits and the private sector" to manage the "huge health care challenges that lie ahead" (Williams, Baltimore Sun, 10/23).
  
  
• Alex Gerber, Washington Times: "Ideal health care reform begins with a delineation of its minimal requirements," which are affordability, accessibility, universality and portability, Gerber, a clinical professor of surgery, emeritus at the University of Southern California and a former HHS health care consultant, writes in a Times opinion piece. According to Gerber, the "answer to our profit-oriented, private health insurance industry" is a "single-payer government-sponsored agency," or "Medicare for our entire population, like workman's compensation, which is the law in all 50 states." He concludes, "To my critics who find my solution ... 'simplistic,' I can only plead my surgical background," adding, "Always perform the simplest operation that results in a satisfactory medical outcome" (Gerber, Washington Times, 10/28).

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