Health care reform: universal access is feasible and necessary

While other industrial nations' health care systems have their own problems, they have more leeway to address those problems than does the United States, which spends twice as much on per capita health care as the average for other industrial capitalist democracies yet ranks average or below average in many comparative measures of health care quality. In fact, the authors of this article argue that international experience shows that assurance of universal access through expanded government involvement could provide savings while actually improving the quality of U.S. health care. In addition, universal access would recognize health care as a basic human right, not a commodity to be bartered in the marketplace and allocated based on class, race and social position.