In several ways, traditional health care financing has long been unfair to middle and lower-income insureds. A major problem is monopoly pricing of many services and goods. Although the point is seldom recognized, American-style health insurance greatly aggravates the redistributive effects of...

This article explores the hypothesis that the U.S. health care system operates more like a robber baron than like Robin Hood, burdening ordinary payers of health insurance premiums disproportionately for the benefit of industry interests and higher-income consumer-taxpayers. Thus, lower- and...