As part of its continuing effort to help time-pressed policy-makers stay up-to-date on the latest reports and findings, the Foundation’s Synthesis Project released in 2003 the new policy brief, Tax Subsidies for Private Health Insurance: Who Currently Benefits and What Are the Implications for Policy? This report addresses how the federal government subsidizes private health insurance, who benefits from current tax subsidies for employer-sponsored insurance, and the advantages and disadvantages of the current approach.

Also in 2003, the Institute of Medicine released its fourth and fifth reports in a series of six, documenting the consequences of being uninsured in the United States. The fourth report, A Shared Destiny: Community Effects of Uninsurance, found that a community’s high uninsurance rate has adverse consequences for the community’s health care institutions and providers, reducing access to clinic-based primary care, specialty services and hospital-based care. In its fifth report, Hidden Costs, Value Lost: Uninsurance in America, the Institute found that the economic benefit of providing health care coverage to all would almost certainly outweigh the costs.

Other Foundation programs focused on the uninsured continued to make significant progress. Through the Covering Kids and Families^® program and its Back-to-School campaign, the Foundation is helping to increase the participation of eligible children and adults in Medicaid, the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and other public health coverage programs.

The Foundation also continues to work with the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC), an organization of CEOs of major health care companies. The Foundation has supported the HLC’s pilot program, an outreach effort to small business owners coping with the challenges of providing their employees with health care coverage. The HLC informs business owners about steps they can take to either obtain or retain health care coverage for their employees.

While states struggle to fund their health coverage programs, the Foundation’s State Coverage Initiatives works with states to improve the availability and affordability of public health coverage. Using a similar approach, Supporting Families After Welfare Reform helps states and large counties solve bureaucratic problems that create barriers for low-income families applying for Medicaid and SCHIP.

At the local level, the Foundation’s Communities in Charge initiative helps communities develop innovative health care delivery programs for improving access to quality care for their uninsured residents. Fourteen communities across the country are participating in this program.

In the coming year, the Foundation plans to continue its work on this important issue, with the ultimate goal of securing health coverage for all Americans.