The case for a national health service

Abstract

The United States cannot afford the luxury of adopting the antiquated nineteenth-century European health insurance schemes as the model for its health services. Experience with voluntary insurance and with Medicare has demonstrated that fee-for-service health insurance is incompatible with reasonable cost, improved quality, and rational organization of health services, or even with the effective avoidance of financial hardship due to illness. Only a national health service, equitably financed, can take full advantage of the tremendous medical resources of our nation, make comprehensive health centers, regionalization, and the primacy of prevention fully realizable, and raise to new heights the quality of our health services and the level of the people's health.