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Informationen zum Autor Liran Einav and Amy Finkelstein Klappentext "As the Stanford health economist Liran Einav and the MIT economist and MacArthur Genius Amy Finkelstein argue, our health care system was never deliberately designed, but rather pieced together to deal with issues as they became politically relevant. The result is a sprawling yet arbitrary and inadequate mess. It has left 30 million Americans without formal insurance. Many of the rest live in constant danger of losing their coverage if they lose their job, give birth, get older, get healthier, get richer, or move. It's time to tear it all down and rebuild, sensibly and deliberately. Marshaling original research, striking insights from American history, and comparative analysis of what works and what doesn't from systems around the world, Einav and Finkelstein argue for automatic, basic, and free universal coverage for everyone, along with the option to buy additional, supplemental coverage. Their wholly original argument and comprehensive blueprint for an American universal health insurance system will surprise and provoke."--Publisher marketing. Leseprobe 1 Poor Design The ubiquitous risk of becoming uninsured We are the only major country on Earth that doesn't guarantee health care to all people as a right," exhorts the progressive politician pushing for universal health insurance coverage. That's Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, speaking in 2015. The eminent economist likewise laments, "The United States has the unenviable distinction of being the only great industrial nation without compulsory health insurance." That's Irving Fisher, speaking in 1916, a century before Sanders. Fisher was advocating for a bill that would make health insurance coverage mandatory, although with an economist's characteristic modesty, he did concede that his health insurance proposal "is not a panacea. It will not bring the new millennium." The new millennium came-without Fisher's help or the passage of his bill-and the distinctive American dilemma remained: how to provide health insurance to the millions of Americans who lack coverage. But if the thirty million uninsured Americans were the only-or even the major-problem confronting US health insurance policy, there would be an easy fix. Just extend one of the many existing health insurance programs to cover the uninsured. That wouldn't cut it. The problems are much bigger, and much deeper, marbled like fat throughout. Consider this: In any given month, about 12 percent of Americans younger than sixty-five are uninsured. But twice that number-one in four-will be uninsured for at least some time over a two-year period. The very purpose of health insurance is to provide a measure of stability in an uninsured world. Yet, perversely, existing health insurance coverage is itself highly uncertain. Right when you fall ill and need insurance most, you can find yourself suddenly, unexpectedly, uninsured. This risk of losing coverage doesn't get the attention it should. It gets far fewer headlines, campaign proposals, or even academic analyses than the plight of those who are uninsured at any given moment. In fact, we were ourselves at first surprised by the statistics on insurance uncertainty. So much so that we dug a little further into the data to confirm that the precarious nature of health insurance coverage persisted in the post-Obamacare era. It does. Salient or not, the uncertain nature of health insurance coverage is key to understanding the deep-rooted rot at the core of our health insurance house. This is not how insurance is supposed to work. But it's how it does "work" for all nonelderly Americans. Kids and adults. The healthy and-unfortunately all too often-the sick. The publicly insured and the privately insured alike. Your tax dollars at work Let's start with the precarious insurance of the privately insured. Almost...
