Health Care Reform: Putting the Pieces Together

Since President Clinton began his term in office, the administration and Congress have considered a staggering number of health reform options aimed at the goal of universal coverage and slowing the growth in health care costs. This paper focuses on design issues related to employer mandates aimed at achieving universal coverage. The purpose of the paper is to offer a framework for comparing alternative plans given the interactions of many options within plans and to provide data that may be useful in analyzing the outcomes of alternative policies, including exemptions for small firms from employer mandates.