If you only read on thing on the health care debate

I'm copying this from Justin Taylor's blog Between Two World so that more people will see this outstanding article:


Lots of people are saying that the best piece on health care is now this 10,000+ word essay by David Goldhill entitled How American Health Care Killed My Father, published in the September 2009 issue of The Atlantic. I don't know anything about Goldhill except that he is a Democrat and a business executive. But the piece will definitely inform you and cause much food for thought. Here's The Atlantic's summary:

After the needless death of his father, the author, a business executive, began a personal exploration of a health-care industry that for years has delivered poor service and irregular quality at astonishingly high cost. It is a system, he argues, that is not worth preserving in anything like its current form. And the health-care reform now being contemplated will not fix it. Here’s a radical solution to an agonizing problem.

Here is how David Brooks opens his op-ed in today's NYT:

If I were magically given an hour to help Barack Obama prepare for his health care speech next week, the first thing I’d do is ask him to read David Goldhill’s essay, “How American Health Care Killed My Father,” in the current issue of The Atlantic.

Joe Carter at First Things:

The forthcoming issue of the Atlantic includes one of the most sensible and pragmatic articles on the health care debate you’re likely to ever read.

John Schwenkler , who says this may be the best piece he's ever read on the issue and that it's "absolutely worth reading carefully and in its entirety," tries to identify the top 10 points in the 10,000+ word piece:

1. We treat “health insurance” and “health care” as synonymous, but they shouldn’t be.
   
2. There is a massive moral hazard problem.
3. We’re the only ones who can pay.
4. Governments can’t do enough [to] reduce costs.
5. Regulation limits competitiveness.
6. Medical providers work to serve the people who pay them, not the people in their care.
7. The costs of medical technologies are vastly inflated.
8. The present push for “comprehensive” reform will do nothing to solve the underlying problems.
9. The proper response is a shift toward consumer-driven care, with subsidies for the poor and a single program of truly catastrophic insurance available to all.
10. We spend too much money on health care.
    

Read Schwenkler's post for a summary of each of these points.

Goldhill was recently on NPR's Morning edition, and you can view or listen to the transcript and audio.