Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008: October 2008 October 20, 2008 Poll Finding The final Kaiser Health Tracking Poll: Election 2008 finds more people are reporting problems with health care bills, and paying for health care retains a solid hold on the public’s list of their top economic concerns. About one in three Americans now report their family has had problems paying medical…
Health Coverage in a Period of Rising Unemployment November 29, 2008 Issue Brief This policy brief reviews the public and private options available to help people maintain coverage if they become unemployed during a downturn and cannot get employer-sponsored coverage through a spouse. Specifically, it examines COBRA, non-group insurance and Medicaid. And it explains why, despite such options, more people will become uninsured…
Pulling it Together: What Will Health Reform Do For Me? February 24, 2009 Perspective There is one poll number that may be more important to watch than any other if we have a big debate about health reform: The percentage of Americans who think that they or their families would be better off if the president and the Congress enacted major health reform legislation.…
Pulling it Together: 19.7 April 16, 2009 Perspective Several years ago Joanne Silberner from NPR offered some advice I liked. Joanne said that the secret to effective communication was to “have a killer anecdote and a killer number.” Here is a killer number: 19.7. That’s the average number of years between major attempts at health reform since Harry…
Pulling It Together: A Public Opinion Surprise April 4, 2011 Perspective Medicaid is the nation’s primary health insurance program for low-income people and people with disabilities, covering more than 60 million people this year. And it’s about to get a lot of attention: it’s likely to be a prime target for spending reductions by “deficit hawks” in debate over the budget;…
Implications Of A Federal Block Grant Program For Medicaid April 1, 2011 Issue Brief This issue brief examines the broad implications of converting Medicaid to block grant financing, one of several ideas that have been put forth to help reduce the federal deficit. The paper, which does not analyze any specific proposal, notes that switching to block grant financing would fundamentally alter the Medicaid…
Community Coalitions: Pursuing Better Quality Health Care One Locality at a Time April 15, 2011 Event Stakeholders in dozens of communities around the nation are taking action to improve quality of care locally by engaging in one or more collaborations. What does each program offer? What goals do they have in common? How do they relate to a national quality strategy? This briefing, cosponsored by the…
Medicaid’s Role for Black Americans May 1, 2011 Fact Sheet This fact sheet examines Medicaid’s role for black Americans. It includes data on Medicaid’s coverage of black Americans and the program’s impact on their access to care, as well as the impacts of the recent recession and the coming expansion of Medicaid under health reform on enrollment in Medicaid among…
Enhanced Medicaid Match Rates Expire in June 2011 June 1, 2011 Fact Sheet This fact sheet discusses the role played by the enhanced federal Medicaid matching funds available to states through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), and the implications for state Medicaid programs as that extra assistance expires June 30, 2011. States used the ARRA enhanced Medicaid funding to…
Pulling It Together: Are We Headed for a Government Takeover of Health Care? July 29, 2011 Perspective Remember the “government takeover of the health care system” argument that critics of the health reform law have used? Well, last week the Office of the Actuary in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published the latest projections of health spending in the journal Health Affairs. Attention focused mainly…