Lessons for Health Insurance Reform: Learning from States and from Health Systems Abroad

Over the next year, Columbia University's Sherry Glied and her colleagues will address the unfolding debate over strategies to expand and improve coverage and control cost growth by examining the experience of industrialized countries that have universal coverage. Since most U.S. health reform proposals rely on a mix of private and public insurance, the research team will examine the experience of those countries that achieve universal coverage with both public and private forms of insurance. In addition, Glied and her team will examine the supply, regulation, and pricing of physician services across major industrialized countries to see what lessons such approaches hold for U.S. policy. Additional work will build on the findings of the Commission on a High Performance Health System's State Scorecard by examining the relationship between state-level changes in coverage and the scorecard's access and quality measures. As in the past, the researchers will provide programming, data, and analytic support for Fund and Commission staff.