As Congress considers incremental steps towards health reform, two approaches that have generated considerable interest are insurance market rules and medical savings accounts. A potential problem with these reform measures is that that they are likely to work at cross purposes. If policies are not carefully constructed to avoid this result, they could negate the intended effects of federal insurance reform. At worst, they could effectively preempt already existing state insurance market reforms.

This report was prepared by IHPS for the American College of Physicians.