Self-interest and universal health care

by Larry R. Churchill

I'm covered - why should I foot the bill for somebody who isn't? This question, unspoken but simmering at the center of the debate over universal health care coverage, comes in for a thoughtful hearing - and, perhaps, gentle corrective - in Larry Churchill's timely book. Churchill, whose Rationing Health Care in America put the nation's health care crisis into perspective here does the same for our crisis of conscience over health care coverage. As Clinton and Congress spar over the financing and organization of a national health care system, the true debate, this book reveals, is about moral and political values, about the meaning and ethics of health care reform. Churchill begins by cutting through the confused discussion about rationing health care. Concerns about rationing, with all the moral and political questions they raise, deflect our attention from a more important issue, which this book brings into focus. Arguing that care is already rationed by ability to pay, Churchill sug