Year: 2011
Type: editorial
Abstract: Affordable for Whom?In March 2011 the American public made it through another budget negotiation just in the nick of time without losing the basic function of its federal government.We're safe, but no one feels safe.Entitlements are boldly on the table for scraping and cutting.Given that the political pillars of the American welfare state are these middle-class entitlements (Medicare and, I would argue, Medicaid as well), this does indeed seem like a bold, though perhaps foolhardy, political move.On the other hand, the boldest political move today would be to attack economic inequality -which is at its most extreme level in history, even worse than during the Gilded Age (Krugman, 2007), and still growing -and there doesn't appear to be a soul in Congress willing to put the issue on the table, even for discussion.It is difficult to confront the issue of affordable health care under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) without addressing inequality.Yet we focus on the poor and in a microcosm attempt to consider what is fair and affordable.The first article in this issue, by Brendan Saloner and Norman Daniels, points out how the structure of the ACA forces us to consider whether and at what levels health care is affordable for individuals.Other countries that do not rely on individual purchasing to achieve universalism ask the question in a dramatically different way -what can we as a society collectively afford?When you ask the latter question, it forces you to think about fairness in contributions across the income distribution.The typical response to this
Author: Colleen M. Grogan
Language: English
Subfield: Economics and Econometrics
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2034128587