If you've read much about health care reform that focuses not on expanding government programs but on private sector solutions, you know that HSAs are a favorite topic. But there's so much more than that. One place to find a grand menu of reforms is the Handbook on State Health Care Reform, recently published by the National Center for Policy Analysis.

At a recent forum where I obtained my copy, lead author John Goodman advised the audience to read the last chapter first. I did, and it lays out a thought experiment of what life would be like in a reformed health care system. It's fairly topsy-turvey, which is to say, rather unlike what we have today. And that's all to the good.

The various chapters of this 186-page book cover topics such as the goals of reform, the principles of reform, and how to implement reform. It addresses the weighty issues of Medicaid and long-term care, and offers suggestions for promoting personal and portable insurance, as well as insuring the uninsured.

It's easy to think that since the federal tax code is such a big part of the problem, there's little else that can be done. But as the handbook demonstrates, that's not true at all.