Universal health care, starting in Minnesota

This is an hour-long program.

Guests on the program include:

Dr. Steven Miles: Right now, business pretty much understands that we are non-competitive with other industrial countries with our present health care system. That is, we're spending about five percent more on gross domestic product, which roughly on a $40,000 car means that there's a $2,000 health care charge somehow built into that car, compared to say a car made in Sweden. And I think that business understands that it's not, any more, a matter of the rising number of uninsured, and that it's not simply a matter any more of the high cost legacy workers with seniority, but that American competitiveness and balance of trade are tied to our health care financing problem.

State Senator Linda Berglin, one of the key players in Minnesota's health-care debate
Dr. Steven Miles, professor of medicine and bio-ethics at the University of Minnesota
Kip Sullivan, advocate for universal health care and author of The Health Care Mess
Dr. Katja Rowell, family practice physician
Joel Albers, pharmacist and health economist and activist for universal health care

This program distinguishes between universal health care proposals and single-payer proposals.

Single-payer proposals focus on eliminating the private, for-profit health care insurance industry, replacing it with a single, publicly-funded system for paying for health care.

Universal health care proposals focus on covering everyone--but some propose to do so through paying for private health insurance or through requiring that everyone purchase private health insurance.