Many countries have some form of national service where citizens perform duties for their country. Some of these programs are mandatory – such as military service in certain nations – while others are voluntary – such as educational and poverty-reduction initiatives. In either case, the goal of national service is to support the community and foster national unity. Despite widespread agreement over these abstract goals, there is disagreement over how national service programs should be designed and what types of civic outcomes they should prioritize.

Adam Smith was a highly influential philosopher and economist whose writings have shaped political and economic thought for over 250 years.

Health care is one of the rare policy areas where nearly everyone agrees something is wrong, but almost no one agrees on a specific solution. One alternative, used in many other countries, is a single-payer system, where the government pays providers for healthcare services. Medicare-for-all, which we described in a previous brief, is one version of single-payer, but as we show here, there are many other ways to implement this system.