Shared by Jon
Clutch paragraph:

What’s more, as far as payment and delivery system innovations are concerned, the public plan is really the only tool available for testing and implementing reforms in the market for the non-elderly. Private plans are notorious for keeping their innovations private--when they have them--and have little financial incentive to improve health care if it will not increase their bottom line. Yes, we can continue to rely on the public Medicare plan to test innovations. But working families have somewhat different needs, and it seems appropriate to pursue delivery and payment reforms more broadly, through both Medicare and a public plan focused on those younger than 65.

Jacob S. Hacker is the Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science at Yale University, author of The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream, and an occasional contributor to The Treatment. Diane Archer is the director of the Health Care Project at...