Falling through the cracks: poverty, insurance coverage, and hospital care for the poor, 1980 and 1982

About one-third of the nation's poor lack insurance--public or private--against the costs of illness. Data from 1980 and 1982 show that a patchwork of state and local government charitable grants, and the disparate efforts of hospitals to provide free care, cannot mend the national "safety net." A prudent short-run approach to modifying charity care is advanced, although the long-run necessity for insuring the uninsured is inevitable.