Vouchers Won't Solve Our Health Care Cost Problem

I have a new column that explains why a voucher system for Medicare won't work:

Vouchers Won't Solve Our Health Care Cost Problem

We know what works for health care cost control. Other countries deliver universal care at a lower cost and similar quality, and I believe that once we've tried other avenues that fail, this is where we will end up. It won't happen anytime soon, and there will be lots of false starts and dead-ends along the way â€"a voucher program, if pursued, is one of those dead ends. But the day will come when we realize that using successful systems in other countries as models for reform is the best way to provide universal access to health care at the lowest possible price.

Mark Thoma

View all articles by Mark Thoma on CBS MoneyWatch»
Mark Thoma is a macroeconomist and time-series econometrician at the University of Oregon. His research focuses on how monetary policy affects the economy, and he has worked on political business cycle models. Mark is currently a fellow at The Century Foundation, and he blogs daily at Economist's View.

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