Lawrence D. Brown Professor of Public Health, Columbia University
Health reform must recognize the extensive role of states in U.S. health policy and reconcile national consistency with sub-national diversity. Re-Figuring Federalism: Nation and State in Health Reform’s Next Round draws lessons both from federal-state relations in Medicaid and from the experiences of three other federal countries—Canada, Germany and Switzerland. It concludes that universal health coverage is compatible with a federal system, but that the federal government needs to establish central rules of the game.
Click here to download the full working paper, commissioned by a joint study panel of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the National Academy of Public Administration on Administrative Solutions in Health Reform. For a list of other papers and study panel members, click here. The project is funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.