Ankush points me towards an article in the Business section of The New York Times arguing for single-payer health care. That's not exactly a common pairing, so seeing such an unexpected marriage of section and socialism does my heart good. The piece is a perfectly adequate recapitulation of the arguments you already know, though it calls a lot of systems "single-payer" when they aren't. But then, the importance of such an article isn't its innovativeness, but its audience. The data comparing our spending and outcomes to those of other developed nations is an irrefutable, irresistible, condemnation of our system. Indeed, this graphic alone is a more than suitable argument for reform:
The more who know the statistics, the easier the next fight will be. And so I'm glad to see them being explained to audiences generally insulated against such revelations. In the end, the case for moving towards public provision of health care is a simple one: It makes damn good business sense. As the above graph shows, you may pay more through the government, but you pay far less overall. And any businessman knows that that's the important metric.
