Lives at Risk: Single-Payer National Health Insurance Around the World Review

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(More customer reviews)LIVES AT RISK is a must read for anyone interested in reforming the U.S. health care system. Goodman, Musgrave, and Herrick, stern critics of the existing system, warn against looking to Canada, the U.K., and other single-payer systems for solutions. ..... Opponents of single-payer insurance will find their views strongly validated by the mountains of carefully documented evidence in LIVES AT RISK. At the same time, open-minded proponents will learn the weaknesses in what they advocate; the book will lead some to rethink their support, and others to work harder in honing their arguments. Either way, the single-payer proponent who reads this book will become a smarter advocate of whatever views he holds afterwards. ..... LIVES AT RISK calmly, carefully catalogs and eviscerates widely held beliefs about the virtues of single-payer schemes. The authors methodically reveal how claims diverge from reality. The evidence in LIVES AT RISK paints a sharp contrast between the current American system (which the authors wish to change) and the single-payer systems abroad. Single-payer systems solemnly pledge that all citizens have a right to health care, whereas America does not. Yet by measure after measure, it is America that provides more complete, more egalitarian, more high-quality health care than do single-payer systems. Single-payer proponents argue that Canada, Britain, and others deliver health care more cheaply, more efficiently, and more equitably, but in LIVES AT RISK these lofty claims dissolve beneath the data. Again, a reasoned proponent of single-payer insurance can dispute the data presented, but he will have to work harder to do so, and that will enrich the public debate we need. ..... Goodman, Musgrave, and Herrick are not merely bomb-throwers who demolish single-payer insurance and then retire to the drawing room. Having addressed the failings they see in single-payer systems, they then turn toward the task of reforming the American system. They propose specific ways to harness the desires and intelligence of consumers to create a better system in the U.S. Once again, whether or not the reader buys the authors' proposals, he or she will leave the book with a far greater understanding of the task ahead.

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Virtually everyone agrees that our health care system needs reform. But what kind of reform? Some want a return to the system that prevailed in the 1950s. Others would like to see the adaptation of the government-run systems prevalent in other countries. The latter, national health insurance or single-payer health insurance, appears to be gaining ground in the United States. Before Americans find themselves participating in a health care system that has failed in every country it was adopted, we should be asking ourselves whether such a system is effective and efficient.In Lives at Risk, the authors examine the critical failures of national health insurance systems without focusing on minor blemishes or easily correctable problems. In doing so, the purpose is to identify the problems common to all countries with national health insurance and to explain why these problems emerge. Most national health care systems are in a state of sustained internal crisis as costs rise and the stated goals of universal access and quality care are not met. In almost all cases, the reason is the same: the politics of medicine. The problems of government-run health care systems flow inexorably from the fact that they are government-run rather than market driven.

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