Keynote Address: Helping the Uninsured: Health Insurance in Ohio and in the Nation

This article briefly discusses five salient issues for decision makers to ponder, in Ohio and in the nation: (1) What, exactly, is the problem? (2) What about National Health Insurance (NHI)? (3) What roles are likely for national, state, and local governments? (4) How can one design solutions and evaluate the trade-offs they pose?

(5) What are we willing to pay? A major conclusion is that many ways exist to provide subsidized coverage or other access to care. In other words, many possible solutions exist. They have different emphases, different structural characteristics, different benefits, and different price tags.

What does not exist is consensus on the nature of the personal, business, and social obligations that must underlie any possible solution. This lack makes the social-political problems seem intractable, especially at the federal level. States will probably continue to excercise leadership in this area.