The Four-Party Health Care System – Part 2

“The Modern Health Care Maze: Development and Effects of the Four-Party System” was published in the Summer 2009 issue of The Independent Review. The authors, Charles Kroncke and Ronald F. White, state: “Prevailing discourse on health care reform aims at the simultaneous realization of three extraordinarily idealistic goals: universal access to high-quality health care at a reasonable cost.”

But what does all that mean? What does universal access really mean? Access to what, exactly? Who determines what is and what is not high-quality care? Doesn’t that differ with different people? And what is a reasonable cost? That certainly differs from person to person.

One important observation in this article is that European national health care systems do not provide universal access to high-quality health care at a reasonable cost. Therefore, imitating these systems will not get us anywhere near achieving these idealistic goals even if we could define each one.

Another observation is that the “current state of the health care industry in the United States has been shaped by an accumulation of enabling legislation that began in the early twentieth century and continues unabated today.” See Part 1

This huge amount of legislation influences access, quality, and cost. Our health care system was developed “less by the invisible hand of the free market than by the visible hand of government.” Therefore, “before Americans abandon the free market, they ought at least to try it.”

Charles Kroncke, European health care systems, Ronald F. White, The Independent Review, The Modern Health Care Maze, first-party patients, four-party health care system, four-party payment system, fourth-party employers, free market, health care reform, high-quality health care, reasonable cost, second-party providers, third-party payers, universal access