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Rethinking the Welfare State: The prospects for ... - e-Library

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Health care 121<br />

Conclusion<br />

We believe that a universal voucher regime in health care provision, if properly designed,<br />

can provide effective, if bounded, choices to consumers, effective competition by health<br />

care or health plan providers <strong>for</strong> consumer patronage, and effectively address concerns<br />

over equitable access to health care services. While <strong>the</strong> politics of moving to such a<br />

system in countries with long histories of alternative delivery systems, and concomitant<br />

entrenched vested interests or expectations, are challenging, some universal access health<br />

care systems already exhibit many of <strong>the</strong>se properties, and increasingly severe fiscal<br />

imperatives to prevent public health care expenditures escalating to <strong>the</strong> point of crowding<br />

out many o<strong>the</strong>r classes of socially valued public expenditures or raising tax burdens to<br />

unsustainable levels, suggest that a better efficiency-equity trade-off may be more<br />

realizable than many health care systems currently exhibit. Better in<strong>for</strong>mation and better<br />

incentives are key to achieving this goal.

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