Prospects for Expanding Health Insurance Coverage

It should be a no-brainer. Every citizen of the most prosperous nation in the world should have basic health insurance. Yet lack of health insurance remains one of the most glaring examples of how the United States differs from other countries.^1,2 Despite a robust economy, the number of uninsured nonelderly persons increased steadily in the 1990s, reaching 43.9 million in 1998 before dropping slightly in 1999, to 42.1 million (Figure 1).³ This welcome decline in the number of uninsured persons, however, offers no guarantee that the overall trend has changed. Health care costs and insurance premiums are once again . . .