Expanding Health Coverage: What the States Are Doing
<p>Frustrated by the lack of federal response to the nation's growing uninsured crisis, state leaders are taking matters into their own hands. Some are attempting bold reforms that aim for near-universal coverage. Others are taking a targeted, incremental approach--for example, fostering public-private partnerships to insure low-income workers.<br><br>The new Commonwealth Fund report, <a href="/cnlib/pub/enews_clickthrough.htm?enews_item_id=26721&return_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecmwf%2Eorg%2Fpublications%2Fpublications%5Fshow%2Ehtm%3Fdoc%5Fid%3D461903%26%23doc461903">State Strategies to Expand Health Insurance Coverage: Trends and Lessons for Policymakers,</a> describes in detail the latest round of state coverage expansion efforts. Prepared by researchers at AcademyHealth for the Fund's Commission on a High Performance Health System, the report covers:<br><br><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="3"><tr><td align="left" valign="bottom"><ul><li>the comprehensive reform initiatives of California, Maine, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Vermont;</li><li>children's coverage expansions, including Illinois's Covering All Kids program;</li><li>employer-based initiatives in Arkansas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma; and</li><li>federal proposals to support state coverage initiatives.</ul></td></tr></table><br><em>State Strategies to Expand Health Insurance Coverage</em> summarizes the recently released annual report of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's State Coverage Initiatives program, <em>State of the States 2007,</em> available at <a href="http://www.statecoverage.net">www.statecoverage.net.</a></p>
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletters/ealerts/2007/feb/expanding-health-coverage--what-the-states-are-doing