Thinking Outside the Box: The Anti-Universal Coverage Club

Many debates in health care over the last decade (or five) have focused on the best way to universally-insure all Americans.

The Left believes in a single-payer health care system where all Americans are covered by a single government health care plan.

The Center-Left believes in some combination of socialized medicine and heavily government-subsidized private sector health care.

The Broad Center-Right coalition believes in individual choice and control, in particular via use of health savings accounts (HSAs).

But maybe we're getting the question wrong.

The Cato Institute has formed an "Anti Universal Coverage Club." It asks the question, "why is universal coverage the goal, not greater health?" To that end, the Club has several principles:

1. Health policy should focus on making health care of ever-increasing quality available to an ever-increasing number of people.

2. “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.

3. In a free society, people should have the right to refuse health insurance.

4. 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.”

There are several serious members of this Club:

60 Plus
Alabama Policy Institute
American Conservative Union
American Shareholders Association
Americans for Prosperity and AFP Foundation
Americans for Tax Reform
Center for Freedom and Prosperity
Christus Medicus Foundation
Commonwealth Foundation for Public Policy Alternatives
Consumers for Health Care Choices
Council for Affordable Health Insurance
Fairness Foundation
FreedomWorks
Grassroot Institute of Hawaii
Illinois Policy Institute
Indiana Family Institute
Medical Savings Insurance Company
Mississippi Center for Public Policy
National Center for Policy Analysis
National Taxpayers Union
Pacific Research Institute
Public Interest Institute
Rio Grande Foundation
Small Business Entrepreneurship Council
The James Madison Institute
Washington Policy Institute

This, combined with the "Health Care Freedom Fighters" (a coalition united around free market health care principles) is a good sign in the movement for the health care debate.