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Remembering the 1993 Healthcare Debate While Listening to the 1999 Healthcare Debate

The single-payer system, it was said, Has faults that go beyond the fact it's Red: If any faceless bureaucrat decreed That surgery the doctor says you need

Calvin Trillin

July 22, 1999

The single-payer system, it was said, Has faults that go beyond the fact it’s Red: If any faceless bureaucrat decreed That surgery the doctor says you need Is not advisable and won’t be done, The options that you have are simply none. Malpractice? Sorry. Courts do not review A bureaucrat’s decision. You can’t sue. How different is your local HMO? For one, the CEO makes pots of dough.

Calvin TrillinCalvin Trillin is The Nation’s “deadline poet.”


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