Readers may recall an article by Ezekiel Emanuel and Nobel Laureate in Economics Victor Fuchs in TNR a while ago about their truly brilliant and, in my view, ineluctable proposal for paying for basic health care in America. Some time later we alluded in an editorial to the provocation of their plan to all the other policy contortions that pass as the foundations of legislation.
Zeke has now expanded this work into a book, Healthcare, Guaranteed, published by Public Affairs Press. By the way, he has a PhD in political philosophy from Harvard and an MD from the Harvard Medical School, and is now chairman of the department of bioethics at the National Institutes of Health. Years ago, he started his career as an intern at The New Republic.
What a story that would make: those who began right here.
In any case, Clive Crook has written a rave review, a truly rave review of the book in Monday's Financial Times. Before you read the review and the book, you should know that at the base of thefinancial plan is a value-added tax. This is one value-added tax that you might like.