The uninsured: problems, solutions, and the role of academic medicine

The number of uninsured persons in the United States--46 million--is more than the number covered by Medicare. The author discusses why there are so many uninsured, the health effects of being uninsured, and strategies to help the uninsured, with an emphasis on changing the safety net and employer-based insurance for smaller businesses. He then asks "What can academic medicine (AM) do now?" and proposes that (1) AM can help eliminate waste in health care. For example, AM can research areas of potential waste such as how often patients with chronic disease need to be seen and what tests they need (not to restrict care, but to determine what is appropriate). AM can also continue to develop electronic medical records that eliminate unnecessary repetition of work and can have embedded national practice guidelines with reminders. (2) AM can act as a large employer and develop novel benefit plans that provide various important choices and develop ways to educate employees to choose the appropriate health plan. The University of Virginia has established the Consumer Health Education Institute, which is researching ways to educate consumers in the format most accessible for them as individuals (i.e., tailored to their health literacy). (3) AM can work with state governments to develop innovative coverage models. Because it appears that innovation in health care may be at the state level at least for the next few years, individuals in AM can be extremely helpful in making suggestions to formulate policy and implement programs. The current estimate is for the United States to have 56 million uninsured by 2013--an increase to 19.4% of the population. Academic medicine can help slow this increase.