Mannakee Circle Group

A discussion guide that takes a current issue and looks at it from a nonpartisan perspective, allowing the public to make up its own mind, beyond ideology.

Mannakee Circle Group president Brad Rourke wrote this issue book on health care for the  Kettering Foundation and the National Issues Forums in 2008. More recently Rourke was part of a team that included Ascentum to create an online version of the guide.

This issue book, called Coping With the Cost of Health Care: How Do We Pay for What We Need? is available in brief for free download here, and the larger “issue book” can be ordered here.

Like all National Issues Forums issue guides, this one looks at a difficult public problem from three different perspectives, or “approaches.” The guide is meant to be the core of a small-group discussion where participants wrestle with the choices and trade-offs embedded in the issue, and come to their own view of how we ought to proceed as a nation. The book does not advocate for any one choice.

Here are the approaches it outlines:

Approach #1: Reduce the Threat of Financial Ruin

Proponents of this approach say we need to make health insurance that covers major medical expenses available to everyone.

Approach #2: Restrain Out-of-Control Costs

Health-care costs are too high for too many people. This approach holds that they should be reduced directly through price controls and other means.

Approach #3: Provide Coverage as a Right

Proponents of this approach say that health care coverage is something every citizen is entitled to.