As noted in a recent report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering
and Medicine, Americans are more likely than those in other high-income countries “to find their health care inaccessible or unaffordable and to report lapses in the quality and safety of care outside of hospitals.”
If American history provides any sort of guidance, it is that continuing to shred the social safety net will definitely make things worse.
Public social spending writ large — including health care, pensions, unemployment
insurance, poverty alleviation and the like — reached 19.3 percent of G.
David M. Cutler, an expert on the economics of health care at Harvard University, put it like this: “No other
Congress or administration has ever put forward a plan with the intention of having fewer people covered.”
Under the House Republican plan, 24 million more Americans will lack health insurance
by 2026, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
