New Way to Care: Social Protections that Put Families First

John C. Goodman

Dec 2020 · Independent Institute

About this ebook

"John Goodman is a national treasure whose New Way to Care: Social Protections That Put Families First should be national policy. It is pragmatic, knowledgeable, and accessible. Read it and help to accomplish John's wise advice." —Regina E. Herzlinger, Nancy R. McPherson Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

The COVID-19 pandemic. The Great Recession. The dot-com bust. The early '90s recession. Every decade or so a disaster hits the United States and reminds us that many American families live one calamity away from financial ruin.

But what if there were a better way to help families protect themselves from life's risks? And what if that way did not further bloat large government bureaucracies and inflate even more their obscene budgets?

Fortunately, author, economist, policy entrepreneur, and Independent Institute Senior Fellow John C. Goodman, Ph.D., has forged just such a path.

In New Way to Care: Social Protections That Put Families First, Goodman offers a bold strategy for giving Americans more control over their destiny, while still promoting—at far less expense—the important social goals that gave rise to government safety-net programs in the first place.

Here are just a few of the life-risks to which Goodman—the "Father of Health Savings Accounts," according to the Wall Street Journal—presents solutions:

• Growing too old and outliving one's assets
• Dying too young and leaving dependent family members without resources
• Becoming disabled and facing financial catastrophe
• Suffering a major health event and being unable to afford needed medical care
• Becoming unemployed and finding no market for one's skills.

In New Way to Care, Goodman invites us to envision smartly crafted social protections that better serve the nation's families—and eliminate the risk that America's safety-net expenditures will drive the U.S. economy over a fiscal cliff. The debate in America over social insurance will never be the same.

"In New Way to Care, John Goodman is consistently ahead of his time with market solutions which align incentives that respect the agency of individuals while ensuring there is a social safety net. What he writes today will be policy in the coming years."
—Bill Cassidy, M.D., U. S. Senator

About the author

John C. Goodman is Senior Fellow at the Independent Institute, President of the Goodman Institute for Public Policy Research, and a regular guest on CNN, PBS, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, and CNBC. He also frequently writes for the Wall Street Journal, Investor's Business Daily, USA Today, Forbes, National Review, and Health Affairs. Frequently invited to testify before Congress on health-care reform, Dr. Goodman received his Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University.