The Health Security Partnership: an equitable, pragmatic, and passable national health program

The Health Security Partnership is an equitable, pragmatic, and legislatively passable health program. The proposed reform of the health care system is based on realistic principles designed to promote access and produce changes that will restrain costs while delivering quality health services. Among the principles on which the program is built are full and equitable access to health care, along with abolition of the "separate but less equal" system called Medicaid, and a national-state administration that requires uniform standards of core benefits across state lines combined with differing patterns of state administration. States will be able to expand benefits as appropriate. Enforceable cost-containment measures are seen as essential corollaries to universal access. Biennial state and national budgets, prospective global hospital and other institutional budgets, relative-value physician fee schedules, and controls on prescription drug prices are essential parts of the program. The plan provides for evolutionary change and orderly transition to a reformed delivery system. The retention of free choice of physicians and simplified administration with substantial consumer choice in decision-making offer the hope of sharply reduced financing cost increases combined with the growth in delivery of quality medical care.