A blueprint for comprehensive, science-based health care system
reform.
Financial and political pressures on our health care system have
negatively impacted individual care and the health system as a whole, an
issue that has only become more acute because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In Building a Unified American Health Care System, Gilead I Lancaster,
MD, lays out a blueprint for comprehensive health care reform, proposing
a unified system run by health care professionals--not politicians or
commercial health insurance companies--that offers universal coverage
and access.
Lancaster compares the current arguments for single payer versus
commercial health insurance systems with arguments in the early 1900s
for a central bank versus regional commercial banks. He then introduces
a novel solution: the establishment of a National Medical Board similar
to the Federal Reserve System that helped fix the American banking
system over a century ago. Along with other innovations, a plan
co-created by Lancaster dubbed EMBRACE (Expanding Medical and Behavioral
Resources with Access to Care for Everyone) would involve creating a
modern, evidence-based health care system, one offering universal
coverage for basic needs while allowing for commercial insurance
participation. Emphasizing the importance of separating health care from
governmental and commercial pressures and incentives, Lancaster explains
the need for comprehensive--rather than incremental--reform of the
American health care system.
