Health Policy

This study investigates the effects of nine healthcare scenarios on health costs and earnings of companies, as well as the earnings and welfare of their employees in an experimental economy. (March 2009)

What are the real problems facing the healthcare system in the United States today and how can legislators and policymakers address them? What policy actions must be taken to strengthen a service that touches the lives of every American?

The purpose of this monograph is to address these issues – to define more clearly the actual problem with the healthcare system. This document also prescribes urgent remedies that must be taken to provide each citizen with a greater sense of security when it comes to their health care, while helping our leaders manage more skillfully a vital component of our economy.

Providing all with health insurance is a social objective. Social objectives are traditionally financed through the ability to pay or when appropriate some type of user fee. The employer mandate is effectively a tax levied without regard to either of the two aforementioned principles, making it unfair by definition. And, that injustice exists whether you believe that the beneficiary ultimately pays this tax in lower compensation, including fewer employment opportunities, or small employers, many of whom are often little better off than those whom they are taxed to subsidize, pay it directly.