V I S I O N S F O R T H E F U T U R E Of The U.S. Health Care System

The Other Side Of The Coin by Dennis R. Barry
In today’s health care arena in the United States, two seemingly inexorable, and conflicting, forces seem to be on a collision course. Politically, the cry is for universal insuror another. However, it’s important to recognize that one person’s health care cost is someone else’s health care found to reduce health care incomes. Those changes are not if it comes to pass—will be pushing costs in the other direcincome. In order to reduce health care costs, a way must be going to come easily, especially when universal coverage— tion. To say that the “health income reducees” might resist

ance coverage, or more accurately access, for health care. Economically, the common perception is that health care in the United States costs too much and doesn’t necessarily deliver as much bang for the buck as it should considering and at worst impossible, but there is a way. Politically Speaking On the political side, universal insurance coverage has great popular appeal. In practice, however, its effect will be to provide a new source of revenue from which mediuninsured are poor, many have insurance available to them, but have chosen to forgo it. Of course they are at risk in the

the price. Reconciling these forces seems at best difficult

is an understatement, but it does point out the difficulty of bringing costs down. Each constituency is going to hang on our incomes were threatened. to what it has for as long as it can, as would the rest of us if It seems to this writer that there are two possibilities

regarding the reduction of health care costs, and the associated incomes. One avenue to pursue—by far the less appealing—includes a series of bureaucracies establish-

cal costs might be covered. While some of those currently

ing prices and/or