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Comments and Critiques on the EMBRACE Health Care Reform Plan
- Gilead I. Lancaster, MD;
- Ryan O'Connell, MD; and
- David L. Katz, MD, MPH
- From Bridgeport Hospital and Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT 06519, and Yale Prevention Research Center, Derby, CT 06418.
IN RESPONSE:
The Expanding Medical and Behavioral Resources with Access to Care for Everyone (EMBRACE) plan was developed as a blend of what is needed and what is feasible in health care reform, but because of space constraints, many details of the plan were omitted. For more details, readers can visit www.hpfhr.org.
EMBRACE is not based on opposition to single-payer proposals; rather, it shares the goals of a single-payer system but seeks to achieve those goals in a form more likely to be tenable in the context of U.S. politics and values and that might even offer operational advantages. The inclusion of private, for-profit health insurance carriers in EMBRACE is not only pragmatic but also follows the example of most of the successful single-payer systems in Europe and Canada. In those systems, private insurance has developed “after the fact,” but efforts have been made to integrate it into the publicly financed system, often with great difficulty. By designing EMBRACE around a multitiered system from the start, this integration can occur more effectively. The …
