Four Myths About Universal Coverage

University of Illinois law professor David Hyman has posted a paper entitled, "Employment-Based Health Insurance and Universal Coverage: Four Things People Know That Aren't So".

He covers four commonly-held myths about insurance and universal coverage, including:

* Employers pay for EBC (employment-based coverage)
* There are 45.7 million uninsured Americans
* Universal coverage means everyone will have access to high quality care
* Universal coverage will solve the cost problems of American health care

We do need significant reforms. But his paper explains why government-run "universal health care" will take us in the opposite direction.

And given the fact that the current employment-based system has its roots in bad tax policies, we should eliminate the laws the link employement to insurance, not strengthen them. This would be genuine reform in the right direction.

(For more information on this latter point, see "Healthcare shouldn't be linked to employment" by Jeff Jacoby in the October 19, 2008 Boston Globe.)