Political Accommodations in Multipayer Health Care Systems: Implications for the United States

Abstract

Current interest in a single-payer approach to universal health care coverage in the United States has also triggered interest in alternative multipayer approaches to the same goal.An analysis of experiences in Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Israel shows how the founding of each system required a distinctive political settlement and how the subsequent timing, content, and course of the reforms were shaped by political circumstances and adjustments to the founding bargain in each nation.Although none of these systems is directly transferable to the United States, certain parallels with the American context suggest that a multipayer approach might offer a model for universal coverage that is more politically feasible than a single-payer scheme but also that issues associated with risk selection and other potential inequities would remain.