Americans have been fighting over health insurance reform for years. Single-payer proposals, as most recently proposed in California's legislature, are just the latest example. However, while rhetoric has focused on how many would supposedly gain or lose insurance, wealth transfers have been the real issue. As economist Henry Aaron estimated a quarter-century ago, implementing comprehensive national health insurance would redistribute more income than any single public policy then in existence.
We know insurance is not the real issue because claimed “reforms” violate so many principles of insurance.
