Universal coverage and public health: new state studies.

Recent evaluations of the California Health Service Plan (CHSP) confirmed that financing health care through a single government payer can provide universal coverage-while saving significantly on health care spending-to a degree unparalleled by alternative approaches. Public ownership of the delivery system can further provide authority and accountability for critical reforms that improve the population's health and quality of care, including coordination of the delivery system. The federal government's State Planning Grant Program provides states with funding to develop plans to cover their uninsured populations. California created a Health Care Options Project that requested proposals that could expand coverage and contracted with a financial modeler and a qualitative analyst to evaluate the resulting plans. The CHSP was one of 9 plans evaluated through this process.