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THE NATIONAL ACADEMIES
Institute of Medicine
Board on Health Care Services
Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance

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Congressional Briefing
Tuesday, January 13, 2004 -- 2:00 p.m.
HC-7, The Capitol Building

on

Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations

To help policy-makers, elected officials, and others judge and compare proposals to extend coverage to the nation's 43 million uninsured, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the National Academies offers a set of guiding principles and a checklist in this new report.

Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations is the culmination of a series that offers the most comprehensive examination to date of the consequences of the lack of health insurance on individuals, their families, communities and the whole society. The principles to guide health finance reform that are recommended in this sixth and final report of the series are based on the evidence reviewed in the Committee's previous five reports and on new analyses of past and present federal, state, and local efforts to reduce uninsurance. The report also demonstrates how the principles can be used to assess policy options. The IOM Committee does not recommend a specific coverage strategy. Rather, it shows how various approaches could extend coverage and achieve certain of the Committee's principles.

This briefing was for members of Congress and congressional staff only. The report was publicly released on January 14, 2004 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. and can be found, in its entirety, on the

Web site of the National Academies Press.