Report

Public plan choice, when public and private insurance compete side by side to attract enrollees on a level playing field, rewards plans that deliver better value and health to their enrollees. According to opinion polling, most Americans want public and private insurance competing side by side so that they can choose the best option for themselves and their families. Both should have a chance to prove their strengths and improve their weaknesses in a competitive partnership. Read the report from Prof. Jacob Hacker. more »

Health Care For America allows people to keep the health care coverage they have and offers Americans the choice to buy into a public plan like Medicare. It combines personal responsibility and an employer contribution to create a new framework ensuring that everyone is covered. more »

The different health reform bills pending in Congress represent quite different understandings of what a health insurance exchange is, what it does, how it is organized and how it functions. These differences are likely to affect significantly the extent to which the exchanges accomplish their goals and avoid the problems that have afflicted earlier attempts at creating and operating exchanges. The exchanges should operate at the federal level, as the House health care reform bill provides. more »

Download as a PDF here

Requiring employers to provide health care coverage or contribute to its cost is essential if Congress seeks to encourage employers to continue to offer health insurance under the proposed reforms. An employer requirement:
• Levels the playing field between employers; more »

WASHINGTON -- As sweeping health care reform legislation moves on Capitol Hill, the Institute for America’s Future compiled the following statements from health care experts and leaders in support of a public insurance option to compete with private insurers. more »

There are straightforward ways to raise revenue that will not be overly burdensome for taxpayers and which will not harm the economy. They involve eliminating or reducing several subsidies and preferences provided in the federal tax code to the wealthiest and most powerful among us. Combined with savings in the existing health care system, these measures could raise enough revenue to adequately fund health care reform. more »

Skyrocketing premiums and out-of-pocket medical costs are battering family budgets, eroding U.S. competitiveness in the global economy and threatening the American standard of living. Health care reform that guarantees quality, affordable care for everyone in the United States—and offers the choice of a public health insurance plan—can do what our private health insurance system has failed to do: provide economic security for families and the nation.

This report documents the irrefutable conclusion that health care and health insurance are becoming increasingly unaffordable for a growing portion of the U.S. population. Half-measures, such as those being proposed by self-interested opponents of authentic health reform, will not provide Americans with health security or enable them to afford the care they need.

more »

more »

In the hybrid health reform proposals under consideration in Congress—as in California in recent years—employer responsibility generally takes the form of “play-or-pay.” Firms that do not directly provide health care to their employees (or “play”) are required to “pay” into a public pool. This policy brief examines the policy design, economic effects, and political ramifications of employer requirements. more »