4  BIS Review 78/2008  covered? Doing so would help some people obtain coverage, but the resulting increases in insurance premiums might exclude others. An alternative approach would be to promote bare-bones, high-deductible policies that are affordable and attractive to healthy people while offering government help to those who need coverage for costly conditions.
Finally, to what extent are we willing to use public funds to reduce the number of those who are uninsured, for example, by providing subsidies to low-income people not covered by Medicaid or to people, such as the self-employed, who find it difficult to obtain affordable coverage in the non-group market? How would we finance additional spending?