This came along before I started reading the Cato blog regularly but I am definitely a member of The Anti-Universal Coverage Club.
- Health policy should focus on making health care of ever-increasing quality available to an ever-increasing number of people.
- “Universal coverage” could be achieved only by forcing everyone to buy health insurance or by having government provide health insurance to all, neither of which is desirable.
- In a free society, people should have the right to refuse health insurance.
- If governments must subsidize those who cannot afford medical care, they should be free to experiment with different types of subsidies (cash, vouchers, insurance, public clinics & hospitals, uncompensated care payments, etc.) and tax exemptions, rather than be forced by a policy of “universal coverage” to subsidize people via “insurance.”
That does not mean that I am opposed to everyone having access to health care, but a mandate that every person buy insurance or that the government will pay for insurance (by taxing “the rich” naturally) is contrary to the principles of individual liberty and personal responsibility.
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