EQUITABLE AND EFFICIENT HEALTH SYSTEM
An equitable and efficient health system provides continuous universal health insurance for all individuals at all times regardless of income, employment, health status, marital status, race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, or other irrelevant characteristics.
This means universal health insurance cradle-to-grave. It distributes resources according to individuals’ health capability.
Community-rated insurance premiums, sliding-scale prepayments, and progressive health care payments require income-adjusted rates, and systems must be efficient in minimizing cost and preventing corruption and fraud.
The health capability paradigm emphasizes a new commitment among the healthier and wealthier to include the poor, marginalized, and disadvantaged in a common human experience of health and economic security.
Health insurance financing needs to be progressive and requires a redistribution through taxation. Individuals and groups with higher wealth should pay a greater share than lower-income individuals on a sliding scale. This will most equitably and efficiently support healthcare costs. Those who are able to pay can support the high health care costs.
Comprehensive health insurance coverage that is secure, community-rated, and progressively financed for everyone is a moral and economic imperative. But the current health landscape neglects these central components of universal health insurance coverage. What we need is a coherent moral and economic framework that makes health, economic security, and flourishing the objectives.