The Health Insurance Study: experimentation and health financing policy

The national health insurance debate, as it has come to be known, is a very complex and wide ranging policy debate. Under review are a variety of proposals that would, in degrees ranging from moderate to extreme, reorganize the financing of medical care in the United States. The central feature of most proposals receiving serious consideration is the extension of subsidized health care to population groups not now covered, or inadequately covered by existing private and public health insurance programs. Much of the debate over these proposals centers upon the effects of such subsidies on the amount, kind, and quality of care that would be consumed by the covered population, and the resultant effects on health status and the health care market itself. The empirical issues discussed in this paper will arise in any attempt to design a financing system to effectively implement the policy objectives determined by the political process.