Health Care: The Third Way

Phil Gramm, the former Republican senator from Texas, sums up the continuing health care battle this way:

Any real debate about health-care reform has to be centered on solving the problem of cost. Ultimately, there are only two ways of doing it. The first approach is to have government control costs through some form of rationing. The alternative is to empower families to make their own health-care decisions in a system where costs matter. The fundamental question is about who is going to do the controlling: the family or the government.

There is a third way. The third way is the elite’s choice, the one they use for education, the one Europe, Canada, Australia, and Japan employ. You have a two-tier system. Government medicine (schools) for most of us. Expensive, private care (schools) for the fortunate.