Can America Get Everyone Covered?

Oct. 18, 2006 — -- ABC News asked a panel of experts five questions about what it would take to fix the U.S. health care system, and we'll post one question and answer every day this week.

The experts include physicians, academics and consumer advocates.

Below is the third batch of responses they've brought to this five-part series -- some surprising, some simple.

Dr. Alan Garber
Director, Center for Health Policy, Stanford University

I favor giving everyone a choice of many health plans, similar to the choices available to federal employees, and to provide subsidies that would enable lower-income Americans to purchase insurance. To create some health insurance choices that are truly affordable, we need to have a national discussion about what kinds of care everyone truly needs, and what kinds of care people should have to purchase directly or through supplemental insurance.

Dr. David Gratzer
Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and a licensed physician in the United States and Canada. Gratzer wrote "The Cure: How Capitalism Can Save American Health Care"

A third of the uninsured have incomes above $50,000 a year -- we need to make health insurance more attractive to these people by making it less expensive. No-frills health insurance plans (effectively banned in most states) would be important. We need to look at how we spend the billions of dollars already committed to the uninsured.

In Massachusetts, new reforms will focus this money on buying health insurance for the working poor -- an excellent idea.

Dr. Joanne Lynn
Physician and researcher with the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Clinical Standards and Quality at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services

States are again working out ways to extend coverage to the poor, and coverage for prescription medications for the elderly has filled a major gap in their coverage. However, reversing the trend toward increasing numbers of working Americans who do not have health insurance will require reining in the rising costs so that businesses and public programs can afford to support workers and citizens. This is a major long-term endeavor on the part of all policymakers and leaders among provider groups.