WITH HEALTHCARE & JUSTICE FOR ALL

Cleveland, Ohio

David Corn in "Healthcare for All--Now" [Jan. 6] succinctly lays out the paradox confronting universal healthcare advocates--a new opening for comprehensive reform alongside public distrust of big-government solutions. The federal-state partnership is the answer--national legislation that offers federal financial support to states implementing health plans that meet federal standards of affordability, comprehensiveness, cost containment and accountability. The states, choosing from a variety of systems, would decide how to structure healthcare delivery and financing. This plan addresses the puzzle of how to create legislation when strong majorities favor health reform but can't agree on its precise shape. It recognizes the variation in state health systems and reforms, and it finesses the rhetoric of devolution, states' rights and choice. National politicians whose opposition to reform has been cloaked in objections to specific plans will have to come clean, because the bill doesn't impose any one plan.

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