"The problem with American health care is not the care. It’s the insurance. Both Democrats and Republicans could learn from the lost history of health care innovation -- an alternative structure can be found in the early decades of the 20th century, when the medical marketplace offered a variety of models. Unions, businesses, consumer cooperatives had diverse ways of organizing and paying for medical care. Instead, both parties have stumbled to enact comprehensive health care reform because they insist on patching up a rickety, malfunctioning model. The insurance company model drives up prices and fragments care. Rather than rejecting this jerry-built structure, the Democrats’ Obamacare legislation simply added a cracked support beam or two. The Republican bill will knock those out to focus on spackling other dilapidated parts of the system."
At www.nytimes.com
