WHILE the dispute continues over health-care financing, the debate over health-care quality is just beginning.

Spokesmen for small-business groups said the new rules would increase pressure for nationwide changes in health-care financing.

Steven C. Anderman, chief of the state Health Department's division of health-care financing, said that it made perfect sense to have some groups pay for others' care.

It is essential to recognize that cutbacks in health-care financing will invariably result in fewer dollars directed toward patient-care services.

A former chairman of the Assembly Health Committee, Mr. Tallon is considered the Legislature's pre-eminent expert on health-care financing.

Late in the morning the council plunged headlong into a discussion of national health-care financing.

Without dispute, the council agreed to send a letter to the Health Ministry calling for the abolition of free-market health-care financing.

The move to mandate the program comes in the middle of dramatic changes in health-care financing and delivery nationwide.

A guide to getting money through health-care financing, life insurance policies, credit unions, and more.

Mr. Tallon, a 51-year-old Democrat from Binghamton, is nationally recognized as an expert on health-care financing.