Kaiser Family Foundation: Public Health Information Campaigns

Kaiser develops and helps run large-scale public health information campaigns in the U.S. and around the world. These currently focus on HIV/AIDS, with an emphasis on reaching young people. Kaiser campaigns are based on a new model of public service programming pioneered by the Foundation —direct partnerships with major media companies and a comprehensive “multi-platform” communications strategy that goes far beyond traditional “PSAs.” Current partners in the U.S. include MTV, BET, Univision, Viacom/CBS, and Fox. Together, Kaiser’s campaigns reach tens of millions of people annually, and have won mutliple Emmy and Peabody awards in recent years.

The partnerships take a comprehensive communications approach, combining targeted public service messages with longer-form special programming, the integration of information and messaging into popular shows, extensive use of new media, and places to go for more information such as toll-free hotlines, information brochures, and websites. Kaiser establishes a contractual relationship with each of its media partners, and works collaboratively to provide both expert substantive guidance and management of production and operations. Kaiser has also helped launch broadcast media initiatives around the world in Russia and India, as well as coordinated first-of-their-kind regional initiatives in Africa and the Caribbean now involving more than 100 broadcasters working together in almost 50 countries.

Over the past two decades, Kaiser has also maintained a major program in South Africa with the aim of helping South Africans establish a more equitable national health system and build a successful democracy. Our program currently focuses on the devastating HIV epidemic in South Africa, and in 1999 Kaiser helped a consortium of leading South African public health organizations launch loveLife —a comprehensive, nationwide HIV prevention campaign focused on youth. The loveLife campaign combines service and outreach programs with a sustained multimedia HIV awareness and education campaign. The South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) is loveLife’s exclusive broadcast partner, providing substantial radio and television airtime as well as co-production funding.

Maintaining and expanding health coverage for children and parents will likely be in the forefront of health care policy debates in Washington and state capitols in 2007. With states generally in better financial shape since the fiscal crisis earlier in the decade, many have expressed interest in improving access to their Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP). A new 50-state survey shows that one-third of states (17) increased access to health coverage in 2006, and no state cut income eligibility in Medicaid and SCHIP for the first time in four years.

Presentation Slides (.pdf)

Resuming the Path to Health Coverage for Children and Parents

Enrolling Uninsured Low-Income Children in Medicaid and SCHIP

State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) at a Glance

Health Coverage For Low-Income Children

A Decade of SCHIP: Experience and Issues for Reauthorization

Citizenship Documentation Requirements in Medicaid

A fact sheet that provides an overview of how the State Children’s Health Insurance Program is administered and financed, who is eligible, what services are covered, and what the policy issues are for the program’s reauthorization.

Fact Sheet (.pdf)

Health Coverage For Low-Income Children

This fact sheet profiles the low-income children population, describes sources of health insurance coverage for the population, and summarizes trends and issues about their health coverage.

Fact Sheet (.pdf)

Kaiser Family Foundation: Health News and Information

Kaiser both provides health policy news and information — giving free access to health policy news to level the playing field for access to information — and assists working journalists to improve the coverage of health in the mainstream media.

Through Kaiser Health News (KHN), a nonprofit news organization dedicated to in-depth coverage of health care policy and politics, we provide high-quality, coverage of health policy issues and developments at the federal and state levels, in the health care marketplace and health care delivery system. KHN provides new opportunities for health care journalists to produce in-depth work and a new vehicle to distribute it through collaborations with major news organizations and on its Web site. KHN also provides daily summaries of news coverage of health from across the nation, original programming from Kaiser’s broadcast studio, and a broad range of perspectives from contributing writers and experts.

Through our other specialized Web sites, statehealthfacts.org and kaiserEDU.org, — as well as our online tools and gateways, we are a synthesizer and broker of data and information, providing timely and easy access to health news and facts worldwide.

We also have a long-standing commitment to helping journalists keep policymakers and the public well informed. Since 1993, when we began our principal fellowship program for journalists interested in U.S. health policy, hundreds of journalists have conducted in-depth reporting projects and participated in seminars, briefings, and site visits to gain extensive, firsthand knowledge about major health issues in the U.S. and internationally. In addition to our fellowship program for established reporters and editors in the U.S., we also run a large internship program for young minority journalists interested in specializing in health reporting. For journalists outside the U.S. reporting on HIV/AIDS, we organize briefings and frontline site visits, provide reporting materials, and sponsor travel/project awards for local journalists to do in-depth projects.

States are increasingly interested in the individual budget model for older Medicaid beneficiaries as a mechanism to improve responsiveness of benefits to beneficiaries’ needs and preferences and to increase their ability to remain outside or leave nursing homes. Beginning in January 2007, a new provision in the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 (DRA) allows states to offer an individual budget option for an expanded range of home- and community-based services in their Medicaid state plans without having to obtain a waiver from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

This report describes 10 operating individual budget model programs that serve older persons and identifies four areas of program design that are of particular importance to the success of the individual budget model. It also discusses how states have addressed these areas and draws key findings and implications in several areas such as level of funding, participant choice, support systems, and quality of care monitoring.

Report (.pdf)

This report provides a detailed account of how employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) coverage changed between 2001 and 2005, particularly among employees (i.e., workers who are not self-employed). The report begins with a short description of the major forces driving employer-sponsored insurance: changes in the workforce and the rising costs of health insurance over the four year period. Next, the report examines the decline in ESI among employees and the reasons determining whether or not an employee has ESI, specifically:

• whether the employer sponsors health benefits,
• if the employee is eligible for the benefits,
• whether the employee chooses to participate in the health insurance offering, and
• whether the employee participates in other ESI available through another family member’s job.

This report also identifies which groups were hardest hit by the decline in job-based coverage and how the reasons for the decline in ESI varied across different groups of employees.

You may also read an issue brief related to this report and view a policy briefing about this topic by clicking the links on the right.

Report (.pdf)

Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) coverage offered through the Medicaid program has played an important and unique role for low-income children with disabilities, and maintaining this support is a key concern. This issue brief discusses the challenges and implications for young people with disabilities when they become adults and lose their EPSDT benefits and how recent changes to the Deficit Reduction Act give states an opportunity to increase the availability of services that allow disabled individuals to lead as normal a life as possible as they move into adulthood.

Issue Brief (.pdf)

Maintaining and expanding health coverage for children and parents will likely be in the forefront of health care policy debates in Washington and state capitols in 2007. With states generally in better financial shape since the fiscal crisis earlier in the decade, many have expressed interest in improving access to their Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP). A new 50-state survey shows that one-third of states (17) increased access to health coverage in 2006 and no state cut income eligibility in Medicaid and SCHIP for the first time in four years.

Survey (.pdf)

A Decade of SCHIP: Experience and Issues for Reauthorization

As the SCHIP program is due for reauthorization in 2007, this brief explores some lessons learned and highlights key policy issues for the upcoming debate.

Issue Brief (.pdf)