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Providing health coverage for the entire family can both help to increase coverage of children and assist low-income families in obtaining more affordable health care services. This brief uses data from the 2005 Kaiser Low-Income Coverage and Access Survey to examine health coverage, access and the financial impacts of health care for low-income parents and their families. Issue Brief (.pdf)
This brief analyzes health insurance coverage and access for low-income non-citizen adults and discusses provider insights into the obstacles this population faces in obtaining coverage and receiving care. Overall, non-citizen adults account for just under one-fourth of all non-elderly uninsured adults. Low-income uninsured adults are at particularly high risk for being uninsured due to very limited access to both private and public coverage. The brief finds that, largely due to their high uninsured rate, low-income…
This paper analyzes the Medicaid Integrity Program, a new federal effort within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that was enacted as part of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 to ensure program integrity in Medicaid. This paper defines program integrity as ensuring that health and long-term care services are provided to beneficiaries effectively and efficiently, with a goal of ensuring that quality care and tax dollars are not being put at risk through…
Fact Sheets Summarize President's Budget Proposals for Health Insurance Coverage, Including Medicaid and SCHIP The President's fiscal year 2008 budget proposal includes changes to Medicaid, provisions for the reauthorization of SCHIP, and the health coverage initiative, Affordable Choices. These fact sheets provide an overview of President Bush's policy plans on these health coverage issues. The Affordable Choices Initiative: An Overview President's FY2008 Budget and The State Children's Health Insurance Program President's FY 2008 Budget and…
The President's Affordable Choices initiative would permit states to redirect funds paid to hospitals and other health care institutions to initiatives that would provide the uninsured with private insurance. This fact sheet provides an overview of the fiscal year 2008 budget initiative. Fact Sheet (.pdf)
This May 2007 Kaiser Family Foundation report is the first of several that will track the progress and challenges facing people living in the New Orleans area in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. To conduct the study, a team of 41 interviewers visited 456 randomly selected census areas, documented the physical condition of nearly 17,000 housing locations and completed interviews with 1,504 randomly chosen adults living in the four parishes between September and November 2006.…
This chartpack provides key findings from a May 2007 Kaiser Family Foundation report on a major house-to-house survey on the experiences and challenges facing residents of the New Orleans area. Chartpack (.pdf)
Individuals with incomes exceeding thresholds for regular Medicaid eligibility may qualify under state medically needy programs by spending down excess income on healthcare services. For the vulnerable population of Medicare beneficiaries who spend down to Medicaid, the Part D transition has added additional complexities that may result in disruptions in pharmacy coverage and add financial burdens. This paper explores the inter-relationship of Medicare prescription drug coverage and Medicaid spend-down for the medically needy. It describes…
In 2006, low-income individuals receiving health coverage through both the Medicaid and Medicare programs, “dual eligibles,” experienced a change in their prescription drug benefit when their Medicaid prescription coverage was replaced by the Medicare prescription drug program known as Medicare Part D. This study provides information on the ongoing successes and challenges that dual eligibles faced in the first eight months of Part D and how different state approaches may affect dual eligibles’ ability to…
This house-to-house survey of people living in the New Orleans area examines the ongoing struggles of residents seeking to recover from the Hurricane Katrina disaster, including a detailed look at differences in views and experiences by race. Designed and analyzed by researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation, the survey provides a portrait of the enormous needs of the population in order to inform recovery efforts and policy development on the Gulf Coast and in Washington.…
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