Expanding Health Care Coverage for the Uninsured in Texas, PRP 141

This volume contains the proceedings of a conference held at the LBJ School of Public Affairs on March 23, 2001, as well as background papers prepared for the conference by the students in a policy research project at the LBJ School during the 2000-2001 academic year. Both the policy research project and the conference were funded by a grant from the Foundation for Insurance Regulatory Studies in Texas (FIRST). Supplementary funding was from the Wilbur J. Cohen Professorship and the Sid Richardson Chair. This publication represents the first year of a two-year project which is looking at developing options for the State of Texas to increase the number of Texans with health insurance coverage. This year's project was exploratory in nature and sought to develop a range of options. It was conducted during the 77th Texas Legislative session, where many of these issues were debated and in which some progress was made in addressing some of these problems (the chapters in this book are current as of March 2001, which was before the end of the session). Next year's policy research project will build on the research that was conducted this year, on the conference and from the base established by the actions of this year's legislature.