We all know the problems with American healthcare. It costs too much, there are gaps in insurance coverage, healthcare markets are uncompetitive, provider payments are often incomprehensible, pricing is opaque, bureaucracy is metastasizing, and our citizens face absurd barriers to personal choice of plans and providers.
These problems cry for solutions. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recently restated his timeworn remedy for our ills: a “single payer” system of government-run national health insurance.
His reason to adopt such a system? The United States spends $4.9 trillion on healthcare, more than any other country in the world. But our medical outcomes in certain areas, such as maternal mortality, are substandard.
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On that point, Sanders is right.
But our problems are much deeper than flawed financing and insurance arrangements.
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