Cristy Gallagher

Growing Support for Shared and Personal Responsibility in Health Care

Health Policy — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 08:54:00 -0400

Fear is a powerful force. Families fear the disappearance of affordable health insurance, employers fear international competition while financing high and rising health care costs at home, and providers fear that they will not be able to deliver needed care for lack of funding. In short, just about everyone fears that our system will fall apart. Instead of taking action, many politicians remain fearful of tackling health care reform, since it crushed the Clintons and others before them.

But hope is an equally powerful force. And the hope is that there is growing bipartisan support for a health system based on shared responsibility -- with the individual, employers, and government all doing their fair share.

Shared responsibility with an individual requirement to purchase coverage is not a new idea. Leading academics and 16 Republican senators proposed an individual mandate approach to universal coverage during the Clinton era. But renewed interest has intensified since Ted Halstead and Michael Lind published their ideas about how it could be done in The Radical Center in 2001. Since then, an impressive array of thinkers and analysts has shared quite similar visions. We collect and publish their statements and provide references in this paper.

For the full paper, please see the attached PDF below.

Cristy Gallagher on Pennsylvania's Health Plan in The Patriot News

Communications — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:41:00 -0500

Gov. Ed Rendell aims to make health insurance affordable for all Pennsylvanians. The Democratic governor's "Prescription for Pennsylvania" remains one of the largest proposals of any state, according to health policy advocates. Here is how it compares with similar proposals in California and Massachusetts.

MASSACHUSETTS

Massachusetts already has a law, pushed by former Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, that requires every resident to obtain health insurance. Coverage is mandatory, and those without policies face a fine equal to half the cost of the average insurance policy. Rendell's plan doesn't have that requirement...

CALIFORNIA

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan would be the largest and most ambitious by attempting to mandate health insurance and covering 61/2 times as many people without insurance as Rendell's proposal. "All plans look piddly next to Arnold's," said Christy Gallagher, a health policy expert at the New America Foundation, which helped craft the proposal for Schwarzenegger, a Republican...

For the complete article, please visit The Patriot News website.

The Economist Quotes Cristy Gallagher on Universal Health Care

Communications — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 23:17:00 -0500

With his leg injured in a recent skiing accident, Arnold Schwarzenegger, California's governor, this week announced a plan that could change the terms of America's health-care debate. The Republican in charge of the country's most populous state, where 6.5m people, almost one resident in five, lack medical insurance, said he wants to introduce universal health-care coverage.

His recipe is a combination of insurance-market reform, government subsidies and—most important—compulsion...

Although the details are still sketchy, Mr Schwarzenegger's plan is very like another pioneering health-care reform that was successfully championed by another Republican governor in a strongly Democratic state. In April 2006 Mitt Romney, then the governor of Massachusetts and now a leading Republican presidential candidate, agreed on a plan for universal health-care coverage with the state's Democratic legislature. It too made health insurance mandatory, and it also included insurance reform and subsidies.

Massachusetts, and now California, have the boldest plans...Could the states jump-start American health-care reform?..

A lot depends on whether the states' reforms actually appear to work. All eyes are on Massachusetts, since it is the first state actually to enact (rather than merely propose) comprehensive reform, particularly the mandatory purchase of insurance. From July 2007 every resident must have health insurance, or face… more

From New England to the Golden Gate Bridge

Health Policy — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 20:53:00 -0500

Frustrated by the lack of action or even attention at the federal level, states and local governments are looking for creative ways to expand programs to reach the 47 million Americans without health insurance. There have already been a number of creative initiatives by states and localities over the last five years to cover more of the uninsured, which deserve our review.

Massachusetts recently passed major health care reform, which has widely been reported as an innovative way to provide for universal health coverage. The Massachusetts reform has grabbed the nation’s attention and spurred a great deal of discussion about what states can do to try to expand coverage. Massachusetts’ success story has served as a catalyst for discussion of creative expansion options at both the state and federal levels.

But Massachusetts is not alone. Several states and localities have started with small program expansions; a few have passed large scale reform. States and local governments are reaching out to assist small businesses, or finding ways to expand coverage to those too poor to afford health insurance but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid. Many expansions offer limited benefit packages, or implement policy changes that are designed to increase affordability. The tools used to finance expansions vary widely, including using federal funds or dedicating specific state funds. This paper highlights many of these states and a few local areas, and the various tools they are using to reach the uninsured.

From New England to the Golden Gate Bridge, state and local governments are acting as laboratories for the rest of the country, and more importantly, they are yielding results. But, while such state experimentation is both helpful and hopeful, national reform should not be done piecemeal at the state and local levels. Rather any reforms done at the state level should help inform Congress about what works best so that national reform can occur expeditiously and without false starts. State reforms should be catalytic and exemplary to, not substitutes for, national reform.

For the complete paper, please see the attached PDF version below.

Cristy Gallagher

Operations — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 07:47:00 -0400

Former Consultant on State Health Reform, Health Policy Program

Cristy Gallagher was a consultant on state health reform for the Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation in 2006 and 2007.

Prior to joining New America, Ms. Gallagher was Special Advisor for Federal Relations to former Governor Richard Codey (D-NJ) in his Washington, D.C., office, focusing on health care,… more

Growing Support for Shared Responsibility in Health Care

Health Policy — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 21:09:00 -0400

For the complete document, please see the attached PDF below.