ABSTRACT
Health policy proposals gamble that government offers of capitated Medicare and Medicaid payments for residents living in underserved areas will motivate managed care plans to extend their services. The safety net that proactive prevention services provides can make it possible to lower the cost of health-care benefits. The self-employed who lack access to private health cost protection purchasing pools, but who are not the working poor, could buy into the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. The federal and state governments, like private business, could approach the funding of catastrophic and non-catastrophic health needs differently. An employer mandate could be modified to become a Health Protection Mandate, guaranteeing all Americans access to hospital coverage, as well as to catastrophic and long term care insurance. If local agencies sponsor health-care services, small businesses that cannot pay full health benefits for their employees could contribute a portion of those costs to the local sponsor, as tax-deductible contributions.
