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Enactment of the Children’s Health Insurance Program has been accompanied by concerns that new coverage will “crowd out” private health insurance coverage. Part of the Kaiser Incremental Health Reform Project, this paper reviews existing empirical literature on the magnitude of crowd-out and discusses implications for CHIP.
This paper examines a method for making health insurance more affordable to people who may lose health insurance when they lose or change jobs. A proposal for subsidizing the purchase of group health insurance through COBRA for employees and their dependents who lose their health insurance coverage when the employee leaves a job that provides such coverage. This paper is part of the Kaise Incremental Health Reform Project.
Part of the Kaiser Incremental Health Reform Project, this paper describes a generous tax credit approach to the expansion of health insurance coverage. The design features of refundable, publicly-financed tax credits for the purchase of health insurance are described for a range of sample plans.
Health News Index September/October, 1999
The September/October 1999 edition of the Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard Health News Index includes questions about major health stories covered in the news, including questions about the uninsured, Patients’ Rights and health care reform proposals by democratic presidential candidates. The survey is based on a national random sample of 1,033 Americans conducted October 8-12, 1999 which measures public knowledge of health stories covered by news media during the previous month. The Health News Index is designed to help the news media and people in the health field gain a better understanding of which health stories in the news Americans are following and what they understand about those health issues. Every two months, Kaiser/Harvard issues a new index report.
This paper provides a conceptual analysis of alternative mechanisms (tax credits, public programs, and direct subsidies) for expanding health insurance coverage. The paper, which is part of the Kaiser Incremental Health Reform Project, discusses the likely impacts alternative approaches on a variety of outcomes including efficiency in increasing coverage and integration with existing insurance systems.
This paper explores the major policy compromises embodied in the CHIP program. It focuses on two areas: the relative control of the federal and state governments over the program, and the design of the program in relation to the private, employer-based health insurance market.This paper is part of the Kaiser Incremental Health Reform Project.
Issue Brief (.pdf)
This paper discusses ethical issues in incremental approaches to expanding health insurance coverage. Although any reduction in the number of uninsured is morally desirable, there are real moral differences between different policy options. This paper, which is part of the Kaiser Incremental Health Reform Project, examines these moral differences by identifying the values and commitments that ground the different policy options.
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Americans at the end of their working lives are increasingly facing greater uncertainty regarding health insurance and hence access to health care. This paper describes a proposal that would allow older persons not yet eligible for Medicare (under age 65) to “buy into” Medicare coverage.
This paper is part of the Kaiser Incremental Health Reform Project.
This document is a summary of the findings from twelve separate focus groups conducted to better understand how race and ethnic background affect medical care. Seven of the focus groups were minority American health care consumers and the other five focus groups were largely white health care professionals and hospital administrators.
This document summarizes a literature review on the subject from 1985-1999. Research topics addressed in the report include racial disparities in heart disease and stroke, cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, mental health, and maternal and child health. Sentinel articles are identified and tabled in an appendix.