Patient Power

Government health insurance: a political power grab

From Paul Starr’s The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The rise of a sovereign profession and the making of a vast industry (Basic Books, New York. 1982. P. 235).

“Whoever provides medical care or pays the costs of illness stands to gain the gratitude and good will of the sick and their families. The prospect of these good-will returns to the investment in health care creates a powerful motive for governments and other institutions to intervene in the economics of medicine.

“Political leaders since Bismarck seeking to strengthen the state or to advance their own or their party’s interests have used insurance against the costs of sickness as a means of turning benevolence to power.”

Starr favors government-controlled Medicine, as Michael Cannon notes here.

If Starr is correct, then even without government’s favoring employer-sponsored insurance with its tax policy, employers might offer it anyway.

(via Grace-Marie Turner)

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