Selected

A press release announcing the 1999 Kaiser Media Fellows.

• Selected

This article, authored by Diane Rowland, Alina Salganicoff, and Patricia Keenan of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, assesses Medicaid’s contributions as a public financing program for health insurance coverage for the poor over the last three decades. It reviews Medicaid’s impact on the low-income population and discusses the limitations of the program as a strategy for improving the health of low-income groups. While gaps in coverage and limitations in access persist between the poor and the privately insured, overall, Medicaid has helped achieve expanded coverage, greater access, and better health care for millions of low-income children and women.

The article appeared in the Annual Review of Public Health 1999 20:403-26.

Access Article: “The Key To The Door: Medicaid’s Role in Improving Health Care for Women and Children.”

This report analyzes Maryland’s Medicaid managed care program, HealthChoice, an ambitious and broad-reaching effort to reform the financing and delivery of health care for over 300,000 low-income individuals. Implemented in 1997, HealthChoice contains certain innovative features not found in many other state reform efforts, such as protections for traditional providers and development of a new risk adjustment system. This report is one of a series of reports from The Kaiser/Commonwealth Low-Income Coverage and Access Project. This project examines how changes in the Medicaid Program have affected health insurance coverage and access to care for the low-income population in eight states: California, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas.

• Report

Health News Index May/June, 1999

The May/June 1999 edition of the Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard Health News Index includes questions about major health stories covered in the news, including questions about Gun Control and Youth Violence. The survey is based on a national random sample of 1,000 Americans conducted June 11-16, 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.

• HNI May-June 1999
• Topline/Survey

An 8-page policy brief to inform the policy debate in California about health plan liability issues, including barriers to lawsuits (ERISA), liability approaches used in other industries, and potential impact on premiums. The brief includes a variety of perspectives presented by speakers at a California Health Policy Roundtable held in Sacramento, California on February 25, 1999.

• Policy Brief: Health Plan Liability

This fact sheet summarizes the reasons why low-wage workers are less likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance than workers with higher incomes and therefore, are more likely to be uninsured.

• Fact Sheet

Kaiser/Commonwealth Low-Income Coverage and Access Project

The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and The Commonwealth Fund are jointly sponsoring The Low-Income Coverage and Access Project to examine how changes in the Medicaid program and the movement toward managed care are affecting health insurance coverage and access to care for low-income populations. This large-scale project, initiated in 1994, has examined the impact of changes in eight states: California, Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, and Texas. Information is being collected through case studies, surveys and focus groups to assess changes in health insurance coverage and access to care from the perspectives of numerous key stakeholders – – consumers, state officials, managed care plans, and providers.This paper provides a targeted review of Tennessee’s experience providing health care to individuals with special needs under TennCare, its Medicaid managed care initiative. The first part reviews the experience of TennCare Partners, the behavioral health carve-out program created in 1996. The second part reviews how TennCare’s structure affects the disabled and chronically ill.

Report (.pdf)

National Survey of Americans on Social SecurityA new survey conducted by National Public Radio/Kaiser Family Foundation/Kennedy School of Government looks at Americans’ knowledge and attitudes about Social Security and retirement. The survey finds the public considers Social Security a very important government program and keeping it financially stable a top priority. Americans are also concerned about the long-term future of Social Security and want to make some changes to the system now.

• Topline

A fact sheet on current facts and statistics on abortion trends, provider profile, and abortion policy, both federal and state.

• Fact Sheet:

A growing trend by state legislatures to pass tough regulations on abortion services begs the questions: Do these rules help to ensure the health and safety of abortion patients and the quality of abortion services? Or, as some abortion rights groups have suggested, are they designed to put abortion providers out of business?

National Committee for Quality Assurance Chief Executive Officer, Margaret O’Kane, National Abortion Federation Committee on Quality Improvement Chair, Dr. Bernard Smith, and other experts discussed the quality of abortion care today, current medical guidelines for care, and whether additional state or federal oversight is needed at an Emerging Issues in Reproductive Health Briefing. A new study that provides the first-ever national data on the quality of abortion care from the patient’s perspective was also released.

• News Release: Women Who Have Abortions Give Care High Marks
• Report
• Toplines/Survey: National Survey of Abortion Patients
• Chart Pack
• News Release