The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
This policy brief examines federal spending on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic, with a primary emphasis on spending and activities to benefit resource-poor countries. United States spending on international HIV/AIDS activities in resource-poor countries began in the mid-1980s; and in FY 2002, the U.S. will devote $1 billion to combating HIV/AIDS globally.
Survey Snapshot: The Impact of TV’s Health Content: A Case Study of ER Viewers
Working with a writer/producer of the NBC drama, ER, to get advance information about upcoming episodes, researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted 10 separate national random-sample telephone surveys of regular viewers to determine the impact of entertainment media as an information source on health and health policy.
This fourth edition of The Federal Budget Chartbook, provides the most recent spending data on federal funding for HIV/AIDS. The chartbook also includes data on spending trends between FY 1995 and FY 2001 and data on specific programs. Click here to view the three previous editions of the Federal Budget Chartbook.
To help understand why M+C plans have exited or limited their participation in the M+C program in recent years, this report presents an empirical analysis of the factors associated with plan withdrawals between 1999 and 2001. This analysis explores factors such as M+C payment levels, local market characteristics, and individual health plan characteristics to help predict plan withdrawals and draw inferences about the types of plans and markets that have been most adversely affected.
As the U.S. Congress works on legislation to reauthorize Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the nation’s welfare program, the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured cosponsored a briefing on the health-related issues of the reauthorization.
This report, prepared by Marilyn Moon of The Urban Institute and Robert Friedland and Lee Shirey of Georgetown University’s Center on an Aging Society, reviews the income and assets of the current Medicare population, provides an overview of asset tests used to determine eligibility for programs assisting low-income Medicare beneficiaries, and considers how alternative policy options would affect eligibility for these programs.
The authors find that beneficiaries with low incomes tend to have minimal assets. Eighty-five percent of all Medicare beneficiaries with incomes below the poverty level have less than $12,000 in assets and more than half have less than $1,500 in assets. Even moderate asset holdings can prevent beneficiaries from qualifying for low-income assistance, however, given the asset criteria often used by programs offering coverage to low-income Medicare beneficiaries. In considering options such as raising asset limits, eliminating them altogether, and redefining assets and how they are determined, the authors find that each of these approaches would allow significant numbers of additional low-income Medicare beneficiaries to qualify for assistance. While adding to the cost of public programs, these policy changes would clearly expand their capacity to reach their target populations.
This brief uses the latest available data from the National Survey of America’s Families to assess the relationship of health coverage to work status, health, access and use of health services by women who left welfare in 1997 or after and had not returned by 1999.
This report addresses national managed care firms participation in M+C and the factors influencing their decision processes about M+C products. Based on interviews with executives and senior staff of national managed care firms, this report examines how eight national firms strategically position their M+C product, including the process that firms use when making decisions and the key factors they say most influence their decisions related to participation.
It seems that almost every week the media reports on a new study about the Pill. Forty years after the first birth control pill was approved, research continues into everything from how effective oral contraceptives are to what impact they may have on risk for breast cancer, cervical cancer, or stroke. The Pill is the most widely used reversible contraceptive today and most new birth control methods also rely on hormones just like it. Yet many women remain confused about how best to weigh their pros and cons.
On June 18, at the most recent Emerging Issues in Reproductive Health Briefing a panel of researchers, clinicians, and public health experts discussed if new studies are shedding more light on the benefits and risks of the pill and other hormonal birth control options; how can a woman distinguish between established science and preliminary research; and how do today s hormonal methods stack up against each other and the alternative choices women have and what might tomorrow bring? The panel discussion featured leading experts, including Hoyt G. Wilson, PhD, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Reproductive Health; Carolyn L. Westhoff, MD, Professor, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and Professor, Department of Ob/Gyn, New York Presbyterian Hospital; Laura Castleman, MD, MPH, an ob/gyn in private practice and Adjunct Clinical Professor at University of Michigan; and Edio Zampaglione, MD, Associate Director for Contraception, Organon Pharmaceuticals.
This report presents information on the number of children enrolled in SCHIP for each state, for specific months from 1998 to 2001. As of December 2001, the SCHIP program covered 3.5 million low-income children. An increase of 780,000 from the previous year.