A call for action. The Pepper Commission's blueprint for health care reform
J. D. Rockefeller 4th
US Senate, Washington, DC 20510.
After a year of deliberation and investigation, the Pepper Commission
recommended action to ensure that all Americans would have health insurance
protection in an efficient, effective health care system. Because it
believes that action is urgent, the commission would build universal
coverage by securing, improving, and extending the combination of job-based
and public coverage we now have. Reform would entail the following
elements: a combination of incentives and requirements that would guarantee
all workers (with their nonworking dependents) insurance coverage through
their jobs; replacement of Medicaid with a new federal program that would
cover all those not covered through the workplace and workers whose
employers find public coverage more affordable; guaranteed affordable
coverage for employers--through reform of private insurance, tax credits
for small employers, and the opportunity to purchase public coverage; a
minimum benefit standard for private and public plans that would cover
preventive and primary services as well as catastrophic care and would
include cost sharing, subject to ability to pay; and a combination of
public and private sector initiatives to promote quality and contain costs.
