San Francisco Goes Universal on Health Care

Good idea? Bad idea?

clipped from www.google.com Another local effort to deliver complete health care to everybody is emerging, this time from San Francisco. Later this year, the city will begin offering what it says will be a comprehensive care network for all city residents who have been uninsured for at least 90 days, the New York Times reports. Care will be free to those below the poverty line, with those who earn more paying quarterly fees between $60 and $675, depending on income, and co-payments of $10 to $20 for a clinic visit and $200 to $300 for a hospital stay. Officials hope the projected $200 million cost will be at least partly offset by getting more people in for regular care, preventing many of the expensive emergency room visits and hospital stays that the city already subsidizes for the poor and uninsured.