The financing of health care in the United States is part public, part private; part national health insurance through Medicare, Medicaid, and several other government—sponsored programs; part employer sponsored; and increasingly individually purchased through private-pay insurance plans and out-of-pocket payments from consumers. It is a complex system that, for all the wealth it consumes and creates in the United States, still has left almost 20% of the population with no coverage and many more with far too little coverage. Under the health reform legislation of 2010, many of the uninsured will receive health care coverage through an expanded Medicaid program or ...