Evolving Beyond Traditional Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance

On May 2, The Hamilton Project hosted a policy seminar on a proposal from Stuart Butler of the Heritage Foundation to move toward universal coverage by evolving beyond the traditional model of employer-sponsored health insurance. Butler proposed three areas of reform: 1) create state-chartered insurance exchanges to offer portable health plans; 2) transform employers into facilitators of health care coverage, rather than sponsors; and 3) reform the tax treatment of health care to give state exchanges the same tax exemptions enjoyed by the current employer-based system.

Butler was joined by Jerome Grossman, director of the Health Care Delivery Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; Len Nichols, director of Health Policy for the New America Foundation; and JoAnn Volk, legislative representative for the AFL-CIO, for a roundtable discussion about his proposal. Jason Furman, Brookings senior fellow and director of The Hamilton Project, moderated the panel. 

Butler was joined by Jerome Grossman, director of the Health Care Delivery Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government; Len Nichols, director of Health Policy for the New America Foundation; and JoAnn Volk, legislative representative for the AFL-CIO, for a roundtable discussion about his proposal. Jason Furman, Brookings senior fellow and director of The Hamilton Project, moderated the panel.

Butler’s proposal is one of four alternative discussion papers The Hamilton Project released this year on achieving universal coverage. The rest of the papers were released at a health care policy forum scheduled for summer 2007 and will highlight a range of policy proposals for achieving the goal for universal health care coverage for all Americans. Authors include: Gerard Anderson and Hugh Waters of John Hopkins University; Ezekiel Emanuel of the National Institutes of Health and Victor Fuchs of Stanford University; and Jonathan Gruber of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The Hamilton Project’s first examination of health-care policy reform took place on April 10 and included the release of three new discussion papers on: improving the affordability of insurance and effectiveness of health spending through income-related cost sharing; policy options for fixing the Medicare prescription drug benefit; and restructuring the financing of preventive health care services to promote health and improve efficiency. Copies of the April 10 policy releases may be found at www.hamiltonproject.org.

• Read discussion paper