The Economics of Covering the Uninsured

Brad Plumer' s, April 22, 2005 post entitled, "Screw the Uninsured," provides a provocative response to Paul Krugman's Friday column.  He reviews a number of arguments for covering the uninsured and concludes,

Okay, so this is a long post, but the brunt of it is: there probably isn't a good economic case to be made for covering the uninsured, although I'm obviously open to hearing one. Certainly there's a moral case to be made, and I think a overridingly powerful one, though I'm not sure how effective that's going to actually bringing change about. As Uwe Reinhardt once noted, the last time we had a budget surplus to spend, Americans chose tax cuts over helping the uninsured; no matter what the polls might say, our actual priorities seem pretty clear.

It is an interesting read with some research to back up his point.   [bm]