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Patient Power: The Free-Enterprise Alternative to Clinton's Health Plan (Paperback)

By John C. Goodman and Gerald Musgrave

Patient Power: The Free-Enterprise Alternative to Clinton's Health Plan (Paperback)

   

The book that made Medical Savings Accounts a household term.

Price: $0.00
Publication Date: January 1994
ISBN: 1-882577-10-8
Number of Pages: 134
Paperback
Categories: Health, Welfare, and Entitlements

This item is Temporarily Out of Stock.

About the Book

In today's bureaucratically dominated health care system, the patient's major role is to sign the forms that authorize one large, impersonal organization to release funds to another. Government, through Medicare and Medicaid, buys close to half the health care provided in America today. Most of the other half is paid for by insurance companies, through policies purchased by third parties, because the tax laws encourage people to rely on first-dollar health coverage from their employers.

When health care appears to be free or very cheap, people buy more than they would if they were paying the full cost. The resulting casual attitude toward shopping for health care drives up prices, drives up insurance premiums, and creates hardship for business and those without insurance.

The Goodman and Musgrave solution is to restore power and responsibility to individuals. They propose that consumers be free to set up tax-free medical savings accounts to cover routine medical expenses. Since the money in those accounts would be the property of individuals, they would have an incentive to spend wisely on health care.

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About the Authors

John C. Goodman is president of the National Center for Policy Analysis and Gerald Musgrave is president of Economics America, Inc., in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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What Others Have Said

"[The authors] have come up with an approach to health care based on the principle of consumer-bought insurance... The results would be truly miraculous. Millions of people, instead of just insurers and employers, would police health costs."
--Malcolm S. Forbes, Jr.

"Goodman and Musgrave provide an eye-opening account of our health care crisis and how it evolved."
--Richard D. Lamm, Former governor of Colorado

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July 30, 2010
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