Longtime IB readers know that we used to be hard-nosed, unthinking, inflexible free market flunkeys. That is, we rejected the very notion that government-run health care, and government sponsored health insurance, could be highly efficient and, indeed, desirable.
One can't, however, read the daily barrage of helpful, insightful emails we get from various organizations, clearly and intelligently framing the issues, and offering viable, attractive solutions to the obvious crisis we now face without being moved. It is in that spirit, then, that we decided to pull up short, take stock, and recommit ourselves to a new system of fairness, efficacy and well-being.
To that end, we've pulled together many of the excellent and well-crafted suggestions we've gleaned from all these missives, and decided to launch our own initiative, to be administered by the newly minted International Institute for Health Care Policy Analysis.
The IIHCPA's core principles include:
■ A shared vision of the kind of health care system that will meet the needs of 21st century America.
■ Administrative inefficiencies associated with a fragmented healthcare financing and delivery system create more paperwork, redundant care, and increases medical errors.
■ Human rights principles require that we treat health care as a public good.
Our overarching goals will be:
■ Focus on controlling spiraling health care costs by implementing a rapid diffusion of Information Technology.
■ Health care should be publicly financed and administered.
■ Based on human rights principles, health care must be financed in a way that is accountable to the people and responsive to health needs, rewarding quality, appropriate care and improved health outcomes.
Won't you join us? Membership is easy, inexpensive and ultimately rewarding, as you help re-shape the shape of health care in the 21st Century.
[Thanks to Bill Halper]
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