This report illustrates the financial stakes for Medicare beneficiaries when making choices about supplemental insurance coverage, by examining how much people on Medicare could spend out-of-pocket including premiums and other cost-sharing requirements under different supplemental insurance options. To assess the cost implications of choosing between different Medigap and Medicare+Choice insurance options, the research team estimated the range in health care expenditures associated with three prototypical beneficiaries (a 50 year-old man with disabilities, a relatively healthy 65 year-old woman, and a frail 80 year-old woman) within and across eight distinct geographic areas. Cost comparison included four standardized Medigap plans (A, F, H, and J) and any of up to five Medicare+Choice HMO options available in each geographic area all in comparison with choosing no supplemental coverage at all.

Report (.pdf)

The Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Family Foundation 2002 National Survey of Latinos examines how members of the Hispanic community identify themselves, their views of the United States, their experiences with discrimination both within the Latino community itself and from non-Latino groups, their language abilities and preferences, their economic and financial situations and their experiences within the health care system.

• Chart Pack

The Health Rights Hotline, based in Sacramento, California, wasestablished in 1997 as a model to demonstrate and assess how anindependent assistance program can help consumers successfully accesscare, navigate the health care system, and improve the system for allhealth care consumers.

Based on the experiences of the Health Rights Hotline, this Guideprovides a framework and specific steps that organizations may take to set up a consumer assistance program. Areas covered include program design, staffing and training, outreach, collecting and analyzing data, program evaluation, and financing.

The Appendices contain a variety of documents that can be used as templatesfor developing budgets and requests for proposals, job descriptions,program protocols, staff and/or volunteer training programs,memorandums of understanding, and reports from data collected.

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• Appendices

This report describes the findings of a December 2002 50-state survey update on state budgets and Medicaid spending trends for fiscal year 2003.

Case Study: Michigan’s Medicaid Prescription Drug Benefit

This report describes the legislative process behind and content of Michigan’s Pharmaceutical Product List (MPPL), a selection of preferred drugs available to be prescribed in the Medicaid program with little restriction. Providers would be required to obtain prior authorization from the state to prescribe any drug not included on the MPPL.

• Background Paper

This report includes case studies of how seven states (California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, and Washington) coped with budgetary problems and how these problems impacted Medicaid and SCHIP.

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Simplified Eligibility for Children’s Medicaid in Texas: A Status Report at Nine Months

This report describes the initial success of Texas new law in removing barriers to children’s Medicaid participation and provides the baseline information needed to observe and interpret how the next phase of implementation, the EPSDT mandate, will enhance or undermine the goal of broader coverage of Medicaid-eligible children in Texas.

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This report analyzes enrollment data and conveys focus group findings about the impact of North Carolina’s freezing enrollment in their SCHIP program.

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State Budget Constraints: The Impact on Medicaid

This fact sheet summarizes the relationship of Medicaid with state budgets and discusses the current fiscal challenges in the states and how it is affecting Medicaid programs.

• Fact Sheet

This report discusses the importance of maintaining health coverage for children who are discharged from foster care and presents strategies that state child welfare and Medicaid agencies can employ to reach this goal. In addition, the report also addresses the needs of children who age out of the foster care system at age 18, and discusses state options to expand health coverage to this group.

Report