The Anti-Universal Coverage Club

by Greg Blankenship

I've joined. You should too.  It's based on the idea that government shouldn't be striving to ensure "universal health care coverage" because health care shouldn't be run like the USPS, the DMV or hurricane relief.  Here are Michael Cannon's guiding principles for the club:

# Health policy should focus on making health care of ever-increasing quality available to an ever-increasing number of people.

# To achieve “universal coverage” would require either having the government provide health insurance to everyone or forcing everyone to buy it.  Government provision is undesirable, because government does a poor job of improving quality or efficiency.  Forcing people to get insurance would lead to a worse health-care system for everyone, because it would necessitate so much more government intervention.

# In a free country, people should have the right to refuse health insurance.

# If governments must subsidize those who cannot afford medical care, they should be free to experiment with different types of subsidies (cash, vouchers, insurance, public clinics & hospitals, uncompensated care payments, etc.) and tax exemptions, rather than be forced by a policy of “universal coverage” to subsidize people via “insurance.”