ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book discusses the implicit intent of national health insurance may simply be to redistribute income from rich to poor or, according to Thomas Schelling, from the rich to those who would be made poor by the expenses associated with a catastrophic illness. Proponents of national health insurances are quick to draw the distinction that it is national health insurance they favor—not nationalization of the industry such as occurred under the British National Health Service. The book illustrates in detail the fallacies in such a distinction. It shows that the ability of government to plan is tempered on the one hand by the technical difficulty of the task and on the other by the political forces which inevitably are brought to bear on government budgetary decisions.
