People Smarter Than I

Julie Solomon, author of the new book Hospital: Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity, Plus Red Tape, Bad Behavior, Money, God, and Diversity on Steroids, has been doing some guest posting over at the Freakonomics Blog on the New York Times website. She is an excellent journalist and is interested in many of the same health related issues that I spend my time thinking about. Here is a great excerpt from her first guest post entitled, Common Sense Health Care:

Our market economy approach to medicine has to change. There is “a fundamental illogic to trying to contain costs in a market-based system,” writes Dr. Marcia Angell in a thoughtful article about health reform in the April 21 issue of The American Prospect.

Dr. Angell, a senior lecturer at Harvard Medical School and a former editor-in-chief of The New England Journal of Medicine, was called “an unlikely muckraker” by The New York Times in 2004, when she published a powerful expose of the drug companies.
Her position on health reform appeals not to corporate interests but to common sense and the desire for good medical care, making it appear radical:

“The only workable solution is a single-payer system (there, I said it), in which everyone is provided with whatever care he or she needs regardless of age and medical condition,” she writes. “There would no longer be a private insurance industry, which adds little of value yet skims a substantial fraction of the health-care dollar right off the top.

“Employers, too, would no longer be involved in health care,” she continues. “Care would be provided in nonprofit facilities. The most progressive way to fund such a system would be through an earmarked income tax, which would be more than offset by eliminating premiums and out-of-pocket expenses.”

Brilliant (and ballsy) stuff, right? Thanks to my darling poet 2.0 Ms. Fjeld for tipping me off to these posts. I'll be back with another installment of my open letter to Edward shortly. Happy Friday, and I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. Holler.