New Initiatives in Financing and Delivering Health Care for the Medically Indigent: Report on a Conference

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Abstract
Despite the current debate be tween proponents of regulation and of competition over the best way to control the inflation of medical care costs, both camps agree that health care for the uninsured poor is primarily a government obligation and cannot be left to market forces. Health care for the “medically indigent,” people unable to afford needed care due to poverty or inadequate insurance, has always been the responsibility of state or local governments. But it has often been rendered through the charity care of hospitals and other health care providers. As the willingness of private hospitals to render such care declines, policy-makers are beginning to study the uninsured and to develop new ways to finance and deliver health care to them. This interest is both timely, as the number of uninsured is increasing, and confounding, as health care costs and the pressure to reduce the federal deficit limit government's ability to expand public programs.
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