HEALTH CARE SPENDING in Massachusetts is just about the highest in the world. It is enough to finance health security for all of us. Health security means that we get care that’s effective, competent, quick, and kind—with no more than tiny co-payments and no worry about medical debt. To redeem the promise of plastic insurance cards, health security requires having enough good doctors, dentists, nurses, hospitals, and other caregivers where we need them.
That doesn’t make health security for all easy to win—just easier than housing, education and job training, global warming, personal and national security, decent living standards, or the other huge challenges we face. Because we already spend enough on health care to get the job done.
Unfortunately, we won’t get even one step closer to affordable health security for all by nibbling around the edges of the problem. That includes following the well-intentioned but deeply flawed recommendations that the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Sarah Iselin, set out in a recent CommonWealth Beacon commentary…