How health care "rationing" is done under today's for-profit system

Uwe Reinhardt: Let me remind rationing-phobes what they would find in the huge body of research literature and media reports on our health system, should they ever trouble themselves to read it: Many Americans without health insurance or very high deductibles routinely forgo prescribed medicine or follow-up visits with a doctor because they cannot afford it, risking more serious illness later on. A 2008 peer-reviewed study by researchers at the Urban Institute found that health spending for uninsured nonelderly Americans is only about 43 percent of health spending for similar, privately insured Americans. Unless one argues that the extra 57 percent received by insured Americans is all waste, these data imply rationing by price and ability to pay. A few years ago, The Wall Street Journal featured a series of articles reporting... [read full story]                    

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