Ezekiel Emanuel

CONGRESSIONAL HEALTH INSURANCE AND THE VOUCHER PLAN….I have failed to emphasize that the voucher plan is a lot like the insurance program for Senators and members of Congress. Politicians are part of the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program. They have a choice of between 5 and 10 health plans in each city. Some are HMOs, […]

IS THE VA THE MODEL?….The VA is currently a wonderfully operated system and delivers excellent care largely because it has integrated IT and quality assessments into its delivery model much better than other health care providers. First, though, it should be recognized that the VA was not always this good. It went through a long […]

THE POLITICS OF HEALTHCARE REFORM….He who does not know history is bound to repeat it. There have been many attempts at health care reform. While defeat has been “over determined,” in almost every case there is a single group that is able to help ensure defeat. 1913-14 ? Amazingly, the AMA supported universal health coverage […]

BIG BUSINESS AND HEALTHCARE….I really do think big business wants out. But wanting out and supporting something else are different animals. Why is today different from 1993-94? During the early days of the Clinton administration, big business was willing to support health care reform. What happened was that when the details of Clinton’s package became […]

INSURANCE COMPANIES….In the post below, Kevin asked why Victor and I included a role for insurance companies in our Universal Healthcare Voucher plan. There’s more to this than just political compromise. We think there are important reasons to keep them in the system. First, as Kevin suggested, we believe that they can provide an engine […]

ANSWERS….to some of your questions from the comment threads: Why don’t we want people to take vouchers directly to doctors and hospitals? That is the notion of individual medical accounts. They completely undermine the notion of cross-subsidization and are very harmful to sick people. If we rely on catastrophic insurance we will suddenly see a […]

WHY UNIVERSAL HEALTHCARE VOUCHERS?….I guess I am a bit perplexed by people’s reaction to the Universal Healthcare Voucher proposal. We offered this new idea for 3 reasons: 1) We don’t have universal coverage now. It is not as if the choice is between vouchers and universal coverage with single payer. The alternative is between a […]

BASHING HEALTH PLANS….I agree with many people who hate their current insurance company. When we switched companies, every bill for my children in the first year was kicked back stating it was a pre-existing condition ? even when the problem was ear infections and the like which are clearly not pre-existing conditions. We all have […]

WHY SINGLE PAYER WON’T WORK….PART 2….You are right, on occasion we can get things like Social Security and Medicare. But remember how unique the circumstances were that got us those things ? not unique enough to get us universal single payer in over 80 years of trying. We got Social Security because of the depression. […]

WHY SINGLE PAYER WON’T WORK….A lot of people seem to think we should just junk the current healthcare system, forget insurance companies, and implement a single payer system. There are many problems with this approach. The biggest is that it will never work in America. You may not like it ? you may like the […]