Overview

Abstract

The enactment of National Health Insurance (NHI) may be delayed for a lengthy period of time due to the state of the national economy. In addition, legislation to fully effect NHI may lie temporarily dormant as a consequence of the recent conservative philosophical trend in national politics. The best guess, though, is that comprehensive NHI is coming sooner or later—organized in terms of a greater or lesser partnership between the private sector and government and instituted in a single package or in graduated phases— e.g., the institution first of health insurance for catastrophic illness or injury. Indeed, the first phase of NHI has already arrived in the form of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veterans Administration health benefits program. In addition, substantial government subsidies to health insurance plans for federal workers can also be considered to be a form of NHI. The federal government, then, is currently sponsoring, on a full or partial basis, health care for a significant percentage of Americans through both the private and public sectors.