Friday, Apr 13, 2006
by Allan Carlson, Ph.D.*
These problems are real and vast, and much debated. Blame for soaring costs gets cast about widely. Some indict greedy HMO’s. Others point to overpaid doctors. Still others cite excessive liability insurance costs for physicians, driven by trial lawyers. Others blame new and expensive medical technologies.
And yet, commonly forgotten in this debate are the relationships of physical health, health care, and health insurance to healthy marriages and healthy families. Indeed, these are—I will argue today—the missing pieces in the health debate puzzle, and the touchstone for real solutions.
Moreover, the ongoing debate on health care and health insurance coincides with special attention this year to the future of another kind of insurance, old age insurance under Social Security (which is my subject for next month). The historian in me whispers that it is time to step back and ask two basic questions: What has been the historic relationship of insurance, generally, to family life? And, more specifically, how has government-provided, or social insurance, related to the family?
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