NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH
NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH

National Health Insurance Revisited

Victor R. Fuchs

NBER Working Paper No. 3884*
Issued in October 1991
NBER Program(s):   HE

The NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health provides summaries of publications like this.  You can sign up to receive the NBER Bulletin on Aging and Health by email.

This paper explains why one in seven Americans has no health insurance, and compares the casualty and the social insurance models of health insurance. The paper discusses the relationship among national health insurance (NHI) , the cost of care, and the health of the population, and it considers the prospects for NHI in the United States in the short and the long run. Four explanations for the absence of NHI in the United States distrust of government, heterogeneity of the population, a robust voluntary sector, and lack of noblesse oblige -- are evaluated in the light of recent political, social, and economic trends.

*Published: Health Affairs, Volume 10, No. 4, pp. 10-17, winter 1991

You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.

Information about Free Papers

You should expect a free download if you are a subscriber, a corporate associate of the NBER, a journalist, a site with your domain name in ".GOV", or a resident of nearly any developing country or transition economy.

If you usually get free papers at work/university but do not at home, you can either connect to your work VPN or proxy (if any) or elect to have a link to the paper emailed to your work email address below. The email address must be connected to a subscribing college, university, or other subscribing institution. Gmail and other free email addresses will not have access.

E-mail:

Machine-readable bibliographic record - MARC, RIS, BibTeX

 
Publications
Activities
Meetings
Data
People
About

National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138; 617-868-3900; email: info@nber.org