ABSTRACT
A population-based primary healthcare system opens the door to intelligent and equitable distribution of costs. But operating funding for the primary-care centers can come from patients themselves, in a radically redesigned health-financing scheme. The first false economy argument – that ill people will spend through their deductible, become ill, and fall onto the public dole – is no more true than the notion that traditional health insurance is any real protection or security. The US Health Authority would also be responsible for research and development and for control of infectious disease, as it is today with the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control of the US Public Health Service. But the major risk of including the state in the funding and supervision of the hospital system is that the state will underfund the hospital system in the face of other needs and other priorities.
