The Uninsured And The Difference Health Insurance Makes September 1, 2012 Fact Sheet This fact sheet describes the characteristics of the uninsured and explains the recent increase in this population. It also examines the difference that health insurance can make and how health reform is expected to cover millions more people.
Implementing the ACA’s Medicaid-Related Health Reform Provisions After the Supreme Court’s Decision August 1, 2012 Issue Brief On June 28, 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). A majority of the Court also found the ACA’s Medicaid expansion unconstitutionally coercive of states, while a different majority of the Court held that this issue was fully remedied by limiting the Health…
Peering Into the Black Box of Insurance Rating June 7, 2011 Perspective Recently, the New York Times reported that private health insurers continue to seek large premium increases despite seeing lower than expected use of medical care and booking record profits. The story highlights a significant problem for health policy: the lack of good, public information about how health insurers manage health…
Pulling it Together: Health Reform’s Six-Month Checkup September 23, 2010 Perspective Six months after its enactment, there are two totally different stories to tell about the health-reform law. The public remains split on the law largely along traditional partisan lines. Confusion and misperception are rampant, with more than a third of seniors still thinking the law contains “death panels” (it does…
Pulling It Together: Predicting the Future May 4, 2010 Perspective A fair amount of attention was given recently to projections made by the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) about the new health reform law, and how they compare to previous estimates by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). No doubt the various projections will be…
Pulling It Together: Implementation Is Forever April 5, 2010 Perspective Now that historic health reform legislation is law, everyone is rightfully focused on implementation. There are two very different ways to look at implementation. One is the more legalistic worm’s eye view, which sees implementation largely as the process of putting into effect what was written in the law. In…
Pulling it Together: Anticipating the Polls about Health February 5, 2010 Perspective Tuesday, February 2nd marked a milestone of sorts in the health reform debate: there was no story on health reform in the New York Times (national edition). I haven’t done a study, but as a professional New York Times (NYT) reader, I am virtually certain that this is the first…
Pulling It Together: The Repeal Trap? January 5, 2010 Perspective Almost a year into an often acrimonious health reform debate, we stand poised for near certain passage of historic health reform legislation. Yet, somewhat perplexingly, there’s now talk about whether a law that has not even been enacted might actually be repealed and reporters have been calling asking what the…
Pulling it Together: This Could Be the Next Big Issue in Health Reform August 20, 2009 Perspective No, this is not about “death panels.” The town hall meetings. The media coverage of the town hall meetings. Media polls about how the American people feel about the town hall meetings. And even the media myth busting and fact checking about the most extreme claims made at the town…
Pulling it Together from Drew Altman: Multiple Agendas for Controlling Health Care Costs January 26, 2009 Perspective In what would be a domestic policy trifecta, we may be headed for interconnected big debates about economic recovery, entitlement programs and health reform. A core issue in the entitlement and health reform debates is the problem of rising health care costs. President Obama, now apparently fully briefed on the…