Matt Holt, last week proposed these two basic rules to guide us in health care reform:
Rule 1 A health care reform bill needs to guarantee that no one should find themselves unable to get care simply because they cannot afford it. Neither should anyone find themselves financially compromised (or worse) because they have received care.
Rule 2 A health care reform bill needs to limit the amount of GDP that is going to health care to its current level, with an overall aim of reducing the share of health care going to GDP.
This week Uwe Reinhardt expands a bit:
Writing in his blog in the NY Times, Uwe Reinhardt sets out three overarching goals of health reform
1. Financial barriers should not stand between Americans and preventive or acute health care that they sincerely believe will address concerns over a troubling medical condition, in a timely manner, before that condition grows into a critically serious illness.
2. Having received needed health care, no American family should be so financially devastated by medical bills that it cannot meet routine daily living expenses — for example, make utility or mortgage payments on time or finance the education of the family’s children.
3. The future growth in national health spending should be constrained to fall significantly below currently projected spending growth, which has the United States devoting about 40 percent of its G.D.P. to health care by mid-century.
All other goals are subordinate to these three overarching goals, as are the means to reach them.
How do we get from here to there?
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