Insurers offer plan to cover uninsured

Industry group calls it America's No. 1 policy priority

By Judith Graham, Tribune staff reporter; Tribune news services contributed to this report
Published November 14, 2006

The insurance industry proposed an ambitious plan Monday to cover as many as 45 million uninsured Americans, adopting a pro-health reform posture that would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

"We think covering the uninsured should be the nation's No. 1 domestic policy priority," said Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the nation's leading health insurance trade group.

The organization called on the federal government to spend an additional $300 billion over 10 years to expand public health programs for poor Americans, offer subsidies to working families to buy medical coverage, and support state health reform efforts. But there are no specifics on how the proposals would be financed or provisions for taming rapidly escalating costs.