Explaining Health Care Reform: Questions About Medicaid’s Role April 22, 2010 Issue Brief Medicaid plays a major role in covering more of the uninsured under the new health reform law. The new law includes a significant expansion of Medicaid, an individual requirement to obtain health insurance, and subsidies to help low-income individuals buy coverage through newly established Health Benefit Exchanges. This brief explains…
Summary of Key Changes to Medicare in 2010 Health Reform Law April 29, 2010 Issue Brief Summary of Key Changes to Medicare in 2010 Health Reform Law . This brief provides a detailed look at the improvements in Medicare benefits, changes to payments for providers and Medicare Advantage plans, various demonstration projects and other Medicare provisions in the law. It includes a timeline of key dates for implementing the Medicare-related provisions in the law.
How Will Uninsured Parents Be Affected By Health Reform? August 1, 2009 Issue Brief This brief examines uninsured parents and how they could be affected by health reform, including estimates of how many might qualify for coverage under a Medicaid expansion, how many would be eligible for subsidies and how many would not be eligible for such help. Issue Brief (.pdf)
Explaining Health Care Reform: What is Comparative Effectiveness Research? September 29, 2009 Issue Brief The brief examines current funding for comparative effectiveness research, the provisions included in the current health reform legislation, and issues related to which treatments that might be studied, whether and how to weigh costs of care, and how such findings will be used and shared with health-care practitioners and the…
Public Opinion on Health Reform: What Do the Polls Mean? October 1, 2009 Event The Alliance for Health Reform and the Kaiser Family Foundation co-sponsored this briefing to have a panel of experts answer questions about how public support for health reform waxes and wanes depending, not only on what’s being proposed in the reform proposals, but also on who asks the question and…
Affordability and Health Reform: If We Mandate, Will They (and Can They) Pay? November 1, 2009 Event The Alliance for Health Reform and The Commonwealth Fund co-sponsored this briefing to explore the health reform proposals being considered which may impose responsibilities on both individuals and employers to have and help pay for coverage and whether they will be able to pay the amounts above the subsidies. Questions…
Massachusetts Special Election Poll January 1, 2010 Poll Finding The Foundation, as part of The Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University partnership series, conducted a poll to better understand how health care played into the mix of issues and frustrations that brought voters to the polls in the Massachusetts special election for U.S. Senate. The poll was conducted among a…
Pulling it Together: An Actuarial Rorschach Test February 11, 2010 Perspective Drew Altman, Larry Levitt, Gary Claxton My colleagues have worked on this column with me and I invited them to join me as authors. As with pretty much every other discussion of health care going back to the days of Roosevelt, the great reform debate of 2009 (and now 2010)…
Medicaid Coverage and Spending in Health Reform: National and State-By-State Results for Adults at or Below 133% FPL May 1, 2010 Report This analysis, performed by the Urban Institute for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, shows that the expansion of Medicaid under the health reform law will significantly increase the number of people covered by the program and reduce the uninsured in states across the country, with the federal…
Medicare Advantage 2011 Data Spotlight: Plan Availability and Premiums September 30, 2010 Report This Medicare Advantage Data Spotlight provides an overview of recent changes made to the Medicare Advantage program and examines trends in plan participation, premiums and certain benefits. About 12 million people, or nearly a quarter of the Medicare population, are enrolled in Medicare Advantage, the privately administered plans that…