Rationed healthcare?

Published in the USA Today December 8, 1999

     Providing rationed health care for all Americans,
 in contrast to expensive sophisticated care for some
and none for others, as conceptualized by Stephen F.
Cohen, would not effectively resolve the nation’s
health care dilemma ("Divvying up the health care pie:
Rationing inevitable," The Forum, Dec. 1).
     With rationed health care, who makes the decision
on rationing? Who builds the equation that will lead
to that rationing?
     Rationing implies that some medical services will
be made readily available, and others will be less so or
be virtually non-existent. This approach works well if it is
not we who need the care that has been reduced
or eliminated.
     Creating satisfactory nationwide health care is
complex. Political and ideological struggles on this issue
could go on forever. If we want to eliminate the
hodgepodge of services referred to by Cohen, we need
to form a consensus on what are the right solutions. This
is hard to achieve in a staunchly individualistic society.
     The self-defeating, bureaucratic morass of free health
care systems in other countries tells us that we must
design an affordable health care system based upon
the principle of incentives for assuming personal
responsibility.
     Requiring everyone to pay a small percentage
of his or her income for health care – with the government
subsidizing the rest – will turn patients into insightful
health care consumers. Thus, universal access to
optimum health care will be ensured when our citizens
need it – not when or if they can afford it.

Fred S. Gurzeler
Research Assistant
Institute for SocioEconomic Studies
White Plains, NY