Health care reform must be a good deal. The UN likes it. Really.
“The people in this country and their leaders are courageous. That (healthcare reform) is an unprecedented achievement,” WHO Director General Margaret Chan said.
She was speaking to reporters after a lecture in which she argued that unrestricted market forces were limited as a means of redressing imbalances in global health care.
The reforms of the $2.5 trillion healthcare sector passed by Congress after months of heated debate will extend health insurance to 32 million Americans who currently have none.
It will also bar insurers from refusing coverage to people with preexisting medical conditions, expand the Medicaid government health insurance program for the poor and impose new taxes on the wealthy.
Conservatives and other critics argue that it will send the U.S. budget deficit soaring and slow economic recovery, but also that it represents unwarranted federal intrusion into the freedom of individuals to make healthcare choices.
Chan has made clear her view that governments and global organizations such as WHO should make a case for market regulation to deliver more equitable health benefits.
Of course. UN bureaucrats are a vastly better record than the rest of us in a free marketplace. Remind me again about what a great job the UN does in preventing wars, promoting development, expanding freedom, advancing human progress …
