At a federal [1] and state [2] level, policymakers are beginning to agree on some bare bones requirements for universal healthcare access. Massachusetts' plan [3] is an early trendsetter, though there's plenty of opportunity for other states to make their marks as well.

Existing universal healthcare proposals differ in some important ways:

• How much financial responsibility uninsured consumers will be required to assume [4]
• How to determine the amount employers will be forced to spend on health coverage. (Pretty much every model assumes that employers will pick up more health costs than they have in the past, but ideas vary as to how the money will be spent.)
• Deciding how much states or federal government will absorb. Virtually all proposals would allow the uninsured public to buy in to public health plans like Medicare and Medicaid (an approach [5] favored by Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell), or the health insurance programs offered to federal employees.

Still, the increasingly popular consensus model for universal healthcare seeming to include some element of employer buy-in, consumer buy-in (sometimes subsidized) and governments extending the health programs already in place.

Regardless, despite some important policy differences, I believe that the consensus blueprint for universal health access will emerge this year. It could take several more years before legislators agree on the finer details--and actually produce a bill that state governors will pass--but this year should see a lot of progress in this direction.