Improving Access to Health Care Without Comprehensive Health Insurance Coverage: Incentives, Competition, Choice, and Priorities

Publication Date:

Publisher: Economic and Social Research Institute

Author(s): T. Miller

Research Area: Health

Type: White Paper

Abstract:

Tom Miller envisions a reformed health care system that puts more emphasis on the end of achieving access to services and improved health status than on the means of covering everyone with insurance. He would leave in place existing subsidy programs such as Medicaid, SCHIP and Medicare, but he favors more funding for tax credits that would be used to purchase high-deductible health coverage, improvements in the safety-net to cover people without insurance, and high-risk pools that subsidize coverage for the "uninsurable." He also proposes reforms that would change incentives for consumers, insurers and state insurance regulators to encourage competition, economy, and efficiency.