Kristine Olson, MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, didn’t anticipate being in favor of a single-payer health care system, but she says a sea change in the industry has swayed her.
“I haven’t given up on a free market system with patient choice, but currently I have less confidence that legislators understand health care well enough to be able to implement anything else in a timely fashion,” says Olson, who also is an internal medicine/pediatric hospitalist.
Olson is among 49% of respondents to the recent NEJM Catalyst Insights Council survey, What’s Next for Payment Reform?”, who rank single-payer health care as the No. 1 best outcome for future payment reform. “Maybe we need to go to single-payer to simplify the system just to make it work, and then build on that,” she says. ….more