The Economist: A small dose (US Health Care)
FOR the first time in years, Washington is talking about big changes in health policy. In his recent budget, George Bush took aim at the $200 billion tax subsidy for employer-purchased health insurance. He wants to replace it with a standard (and limited) deduction for everyone who buys insurance, which would help control health-care costs and boost coverage. His budget also chops at Medicare, the government's health plan for the old, cutting payments to providers and making richer old folk pay higher insurance premiums.
Top congressional Democrats have denounced both proposals, but are themselves talking big about health care. Pete Stark, the top man on health in the House of Representatives, wants to move America towards a single-payer system by allowing everyone to buy into Medicare. That idea has scant support beyond the party's extreme left. Ron Wyden, a senator from Oregon, is pushing a more centrist approach. He wants to cut the link between employment and health care by replacing today's tax subsidy with a standard health-care deduction and subsidies to help poor people pay for insurance, which everyone would have to buy.
The debate in Washington is driven partly by the states, several of which have ambitious plans to cut the ranks of the uninsured. Unions and business groups are also demanding action. Lee Scott, head of Wal-Mart, the world's biggest retailer and a company often pilloried by the political left, recently joined forces with Andy Stern, a top union leader, to push for universal health coverage by 2012. …
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