The COBRA Subsidy and Health Insurance for the Unemployed April 16, 2010 Issue Brief With the nation’s unemployment rate rising to its highest levels in decades as a result of the recession, many families have lost their employer-sponsored health coverage or are at risk of doing so. In an effort to help people maintain coverage after a layoff, the stimulus legislation known as the…
Explaining Health Care Reform: Questions About Health Insurance Exchanges April 1, 2010 Issue Brief The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), signed into law in March 2010, made broad changes to the way health insurance will be provided and paid for in the United States. PPACA created a new mechanism for purchasing coverage called Exchanges, which are entities that will be set up…
Pulling it Together: When Premiums Go Up 39% March 8, 2010 Perspective Our group that works on health care cost issues just updated an analysis that sheds light on what’s really happening to people in the individual health insurance market, the issue Secretary Sebelius, a former Kansas insurance commissioner, and others have put in the spotlight by calling on Anthem and other…
Workplace Wellness Programs, Healthy Behaviors and Health Reform November 29, 2009 Event Many large employers offer financial incentives to their employees to exercise regularly, improve their diets, lose weight and quit smoking. Health reform proposals would write some of these incentives into law. But some patient advocates say that, depending on how the incentives are structured, they can make coverage more expensive…
Snapshots: Wages & Benefits: A Long-Term View November 13, 2009 Issue Brief Recent polls show that a substantial portion of families worry about whether their incomes will keep pace with rising prices generally and whether they will have to pay more for health care or health insurance.1 This concern about the cost of health insurance may result in part from the rapid increases…
Affordability and Health Reform: If We Mandate, Will They (and Can They) Pay? November 1, 2009 Event The Alliance for Health Reform and The Commonwealth Fund co-sponsored this briefing to explore the health reform proposals being considered which may impose responsibilities on both individuals and employers to have and help pay for coverage and whether they will be able to pay the amounts above the subsidies. Questions…
Assessing Congressional Budget Office Estimates of the Cost and Coverage Implications of Health Reform Proposals November 1, 2009 Issue Brief This issue brief explains key elements of the Congressional Budget Office’s estimates of the major health reform bills pending in Congress, the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962) and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (H.R. 3590). Throughout the health reform debate, CBO has analyzed these and…
Changes in Health Insurance Coverage, 2007-2008: Early Impact of the Recession October 1, 2009 Issue Brief This issue brief examines trends in health insurance coverage from 2007 to 2008, a period marked by the start of a deep recession. It finds that the share of the nonelderly population covered by employer-provided insurance declined, the share covered by public programs increased and the number of uninsured people…
The Sleeper in Health Reform: Long-Term Care and the CLASS Act October 1, 2009 Event The Kaiser Family Foundation briefing examines a little-noticed but major provision in two leading health reform bills that would change the way that the U.S. pays for long-term care. The provision, known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act, would establish a national voluntary insurance program that…
Pulling it Together: Simple Arithmetic September 10, 2009 Perspective This week we put out our annual benchmark survey of employer health coverage and costs. Two numbers jumped off the pages. The first number was the average cost of a family health insurance policy in 2009: $13,375. To put that number in context, if you are an employer, you can…