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-Robert Helms, Resident Scholar, American Enterprise Institute
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As the number of uninsured Americans continues to climb… Bipartisan compromises possible for significant expansions in health coverage ESRI announces a new Current Policy Series Paper by Stan Dorn and Jack Meyer of the Economic and Social Research Institute Competing Congressional proposals could be combined to provide affordable coverage for millions of uninsured Americans, according to a report released today by the Economic and Social Research Institute. ESRI’s report identifies three bipartisan approaches to investing $9 billion a year to cover the uninsured. In their budgets released earlier this year, both President Bush and Senate Democrats proposed spending this amount, but policymakers could not resolve their philosophical differences over how to expand coverage. Past Congressional debates pitted supporters of private, market approaches against proponents of public programs. Only in this summer’s trade bill were policymakers able to overcome their differences and agree on a refundable tax credit that workers displaced by international competition could use to buy coverage from state-based health plans and other sources. ESRI's paper shows how America’s elected leaders could build on this modest, bipartisan success to help a large group of uninsured. "Millions of uninsured could receive timely and much-needed assistance if policymakers move beyond traditional proposals to combine elements that appeal to diverse philosophies and policy preferences," said Jack Meyer, report co-author and President of ESRI. “We highlight three policies that might work, but other approaches could surely do as well or even better." To address the current impasse, the first approach in today’s report provides federal income tax credits to help uninsured Americans buy coverage through an insurance market modeled after the health program for federal employees. The second approach combines a Medicaid expansion for the lowest-income uninsured with a health insurance tax credit for employees of small business. The third alternative gives states federal grants providing diverse options to expand coverage. "With the number of uninsured Americans rising by 1.4 million in 2001, and even larger numbers likely to lose health insurance this year, the need for effective, bipartisan solutions remains compelling," concluded Stan Dorn, the report's lead author. View the paper:
Covering America promotes serious consideration of a diverse range of comprehensive proposals to provide affordable health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. The Covering America project is coordinated by the Economic and Social Research Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute in Washington, D.C., and is made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Princeton, New Jersey.
To subscribe to future mailings: announcements@esresearch.org To unsubsribe: announcements@esresearch.org
www.esresearch.org |
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"ESRI
has again come up with creative policy options for the uninsured.
“Health
policy experts have developed a number of interesting proposals that
have been ably brought together and explained by the Covering America
project. But the experts can't provide the political compromise that
will be necessary to move forward. This paper attempts to make that
compromise easier by outlining a series of options from market-based
tax credits (that I prefer) to expansions of public programs. The experts
have delivered an easy pitch by designing each option to minimize the
objections of its opponents. When the politicians get ready to play
this game, they can hit this one out of the park.”