This new chartpack provides an overview of major trends in the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States.

Chartpack (.pdf)

May 1-7, 2006, is Cover the Uninsured Week, organized by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and several partner organizations. The Kaiser Family Foundation has a wide range of resources on the topics of health coverage and the nation’s uninsured population to assist you in your work related to these issues.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation launches the Week at a May 2 event in Washington, D.C.

Webcast

Fact Sheets & Primer

• The Uninsured and Their Access to Care
• Covering the Uninsured: Growing Need, Strained Resources
• Massachusetts’ New Law to Cover the Uninsured
• Women’s Health Insurance Coverage
• The Uninsured: A Primer

Reports & Chartbooks

• Health Coverage in America, 2004 Data Update
• Employer Health Benefits 2005 Annual Survey
• Sicker and Poorer: The Consequences of Being Uninsured
• The Cost of Care for the Uninsured: What Do We Spend, Who Pays, and What Would Full Coverage Add to Medical Spending?
• Threadbare: Holes in America’s Health Care Safety Net
• Challenges and Tradeoffs in Low-Income Family Budgets: Implications for Health Coverage

Three Reports on Enrollment and Outreach for Public Health Coverage Programs

• In a Time of Growing Need: State Choices Influence Health Coverage Access for Children and Families
• Opening Doorways to Health Care for Children
• Outreach Strategies for Medicaid and SCHIP

Special Resources

• State Level Data on Health Coverage & the Uninsured
• Uninsured Tutorial, Module, and Reference Library

Electronic media is a central focus of many very young children’s lives, used by parents to help manage busy schedules, keep the peace, and facilitate family routines such as eating, relaxing, and falling asleep, according to a new national study by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Many parents also express satisfaction with the educational benefits of TV and how it can teach positive behaviors.

The report, The Media Family: Electronic Media in the Lives of Infants, Toddlers, Preschoolers, and Their Parents, is based on a national survey of 1,051 parents with children age six months to six years old and a series of focus groups across the country.

Report (.pdf)

Appendices (.pdf)

In recent years, there have been significant changes to Medicaid that have the potential to reshape program coverage for the nearly 19 million women who rely on the program. This policy forum focused on recent federal and state policies, including the federal Deficit Reduction Act and state waiver programs, and their impact on low-income women, who make up approximately 70% of Medicaid’s adult beneficiaries.

Medicaid’s Role for Women

Materials From the May 11, 2006, Policy Forum:

Webcast

Salganicoff Presentation (.pdf)

Rudowitz Presentation (.pdf)

Agenda (.pdf)

Speaker Biographies (.pdf)

This snapshot summarizes the latest information and policy issues about the enrollment of dual eligibles into the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Issue Brief (.pdf)

Toward Making Medicare Work for Low-Income Beneficiaries: A Baseline Comparison of the Part D Low-Income Subsidy and Medicare Savings Programs Eligibility and Enrollment Rules

This report examines how the low-income provisions of the Medicare drug benefit interact with state-level assistance provided through the Medicare Savings Program.

The Medicare drug benefit provides additional help with premiums and cost-sharing requirements for eligible, low-income beneficiaries. The Social Security Administration oversees enrollment in this program. Separately, each state runs a Medicare Savings Program, which also assists low-income Medicare beneficiaries by helping to pay Medicare premiums and, in some states, helping with cost-sharing requirements. The eligibility and enrollment requirements vary from state to state.

The report surveys all 50 state programs (and the District of Columbia) to help assess the feasibility of aligning the two programs. The study specifically examines the differences in eligibility rules, the extent in which the enrollment information gathered for the Medicare drug benefit’s low-income assistance program can be used to make determinations for eligibility under the state programs and the differences in how application might be reviewed depending on whether they apply through Social Security or through the state program.

The report was prepared for the Foundation by the Center for Medicare Advocacy.

Report (.pdf)

Observations on the Initial Implementation of the Medicare Prescription Drug Program: Perspectives of State Medicaid Directors Through a Focus Group Discussion

Medicaid directors express the need to continue to focus on the interaction between Medicaid and the Medicare prescription drug benefit and to address the key system and coordination issues that remain, particularly with the potential disruptions that could occur in January 2007 when new Medicare drug plan contracts and recalculated benchmarks for the low-income subsidy take effect.

Report (.pdf)

Premiums and Cost-Sharing Features in Medicare’s New Prescription Drug Program, 2006

When Congress created the Medicare drug benefit in 2003, it also sought to generate more private plan options for senior and disabled beneficiaries in Medicare, with increased payments to attract sponsors and to support added benefits attractive to enrollees, especially in rural and other areas that previously had few such plans. The effects of these changes and additional payments are particularly visible this year, with a total of 1,314 Medicare Advantage plans and 1,429 stand-alone prescription drug plans being offered. Beneficiaries in most states have a choice of at least 40 stand-alone drug plans, and, in some areas, also have a choice of dozens of Medicare Advantage options.

A new analysis by Marsha Gold of Mathematica Policy Research, prepared for the Kaiser Family Foundation, provides a comprehensive look at premiums, deductibles and selected cost-sharing features of Medicare Advantage prescription drug plans in 2006, including Medicare HMOs, new regional (and traditional local) PPOs, and private fee-for-service plans, and compares them to stand-alone Medicare drug plans. The new analysis, Premiums and Cost Sharing Features Medicare’s New Prescription Drug Program, 2006, finds that Medicare Advantage plans on average charge less for their drug coverage ($18 per month) than stand-alone drug plans ($37 per month).

The growth in private plan options reflects a policy choice to pay private plans more to encourage more options for Medicare beneficiaries. Because Medicare now pays more for beneficiaries who enroll in private plans than it does for beneficiaries who enroll in traditional, government-run Medicare, increases in private-plan enrollment cost the government money. This reflects a significant departure from previous policy that sought to promote managed care without increasing total Medicare outlays or even to generate some savings. Currently about one in seven Medicare beneficiaries is enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, but the Medicare trustees project that enrollment will more than double over the next decade under current payment policies.

Issue Brief (.pdf)

On January 1, 2006, the six million Americans who are covered by both Medicare and Medicaid saw a change in how their prescription drugs are covered. The dual eligible population was transitioned from Medicaid into the Medicare prescription drug benefit. As a group, these beneficiaries are poorer and sicker than those on Medicare. Consequently, they have more extensive health and prescription drug needs than most Medicare beneficiaries.

Most of these dual eligible beneficiaries were automatically enrolled in coverage plans by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. Others made their own selections. In 2005, the Kaiser Family Foundation produced a video exploring the concerns some within this population had about this transition. This latest video, produced in 2006, follows up on what their experiences have been now that the program has been enacted and what challenges they may face as insurers re-evaluate their plans every year.

This issue brief provides some general background on Vermont’s Medicaid program and the Global Commitment waiver; answers a series of key questions about how it is designed to work; and discusses the potential implications for the state of Vermont, beneficiaries, and the Medicaid program.

In the fall of 2005, Vermont secured approval for a Section 1115 Medicaid waiver known as the “Global Commitment waiver” that allows the state to fundamentally restructure its Medicaid program. The waiver imposes a cap on the amount of federal Medicaid funding available to Vermont to provide acute care services to its Medicaid population. In combination with a second, long-term care waiver, the Global Commitment waiver makes Vermont the only state in the nation facing a fixed-dollar limit on the amount of federal funding available for its Medicaid program. In exchange for taking on the risk of operating under a capped funding arrangement, the waiver allows Vermont to use federal Medicaid funds to refinance a broad array of its own non-Medicaid health programs, creating a fiscal windfall for the state. It also gives Vermont new flexibility to reduce benefits, increase cost sharing and cap enrollment for many Medicaid beneficiaries.

Issue Brief (.pdf)