State health insurance initiatives: what the literature is telling us

The absence in the United States of a comprehensive national health insurance system has left a significant number of people either without coverage or with only partial (and inadequate) coverage. Individual states have sought to remedy this through a number of initiatives, but the majority have been incremental in nature, not universal. Sifting through the extensive literature on what states are doing and have been doing, the author reveals the nature of their attempts (and their infrequent successes) and provides issues and questions that must be dealt with before a system acceptable--and accessible--to all can be achieved.