We’ve Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Care — Why Patches Keep Failing

America has spent decades trying to close gaps in health insurance. Einav and Finkelstein argue that the repeated need for new fixes may itself reveal the deeper problem.Welcome to Crisis in Perception, where we examine the systems shaping our world.Using We’ve Got You Covered: Rebooting American Health Care by economists Liran Einav and Amy Finkelstein as our lens, this investigation examines how American health-insurance policy became a layered collection of employer coverage, public programs, subsidies, eligibility rules, emergency protections, and targeted exceptions.The authors argue that these policies reveal an unwritten social contract: Americans repeatedly choose to provide essential medical care when people become seriously ill and cannot afford it. Yet because that commitment has never been systematically formalized, policy tends to respond after visible failures occur. New patches solve particular problems while preserving—and sometimes increasing—the complexity underneath them.Their proposed alternative begins with function rather than existing institutions: automatic, taxpayer-financed universal basic coverage; no patient fees for essential covered services; a deliberately limited basic package operating within a public budget; and supplemental insurance for additional care or amenities.Central systems include path dependence, administrative friction, crisis-driven policymaking, incentive design, cost sharing, public budgeting, and the tension between guaranteeing adequacy and pursuing equality.📺 Watch on YouTube:https://youtu.be/Hwr4WMsoJ_w❤️ Support / Episode Post on Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/CrisisinPerception/posts/weve-got-you-why-166762845?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_linkIf these ideas resonate, consider reading the work yourself or borrowing it from your local library. Supporting authors and libraries helps keep critical inquiry accessible.If you value systems-level analysis like this, please follow, rate, and share the project.This content was created using AI-assisted tools for research synthesis, structuring, and narration support. All analysis, framing, and editorial decisions are guided by human judgment as part of the Crisis in Perception project.