The Role of Health Coverage for Communities of Color October 31, 2009 Issue Brief The current health reform debate in this country focuses heavily on providing access to affordable health coverage for the millions of people who are uninsured. Any effort to expand coverage, alter current public programs, and/or create new public programs will have important consequences for the health of communities of color,…
State Variation and Health Reform: A Chartbook October 31, 2009 Report This chartbook pulls together data related to state variation in key areas such as major industry types, poverty and unemployment rates and fiscal conditions; health coverage and the uninsured; Medicaid and CHIP eligibility and enrollment; Medicaid spending and financing; access to Health Care; health care costs; and insurance markets.
Medicare Part D 2010 Data Spotlight: The Coverage Gap October 30, 2009 Report This data spotlight examines the coverage gap, or “doughnut hole,” in Medicare stand-alone drug plans available in 2010. While in the gap in coverage, Part D enrollees (other than those receiving low-income subsidies) are required to pay 100 percent of total drug costs until they reach the catastrophic coverage level.…
Medicare Advantage 2010 Data Spotlight: Plan Availability and Premiums October 30, 2009 Issue Brief This data spotlight examines changes in the availability and premiums of private Medicare Advantage options for Medicare beneficiaries in 2010 as the annual open enrollment period begins. While the number of plans available in 2010 declined somewhat from 2009, the analysis finds that Medicare beneficiaries on average have 33 Medicare…
Medicare Part D Spotlight: Part D Plan Availability in 2010 and Key Changes Since 2006 October 30, 2009 Issue Brief This Medicare Part D data spotlight examines the stand-alone Medicare drug plan options that will be available to beneficiaries in 2010, including the number of available plans, premiums for those plans, and benefit designs. About two-thirds of the nearly 27 million Medicare beneficiaries who are enrolled in Part D plans get…
Pulling it Together: The “Third School” for Controlling Health Care Costs? October 26, 2009 Perspective For as long as I have been in the field, there have been two dominant schools of thought about how to control health care costs. One school, The Regulators, believed that the best way to slow increasing costs was to control the total resources going into the health care system:…
Pulling it Together: Implementation October 7, 2009 Perspective When I was a graduate student at MIT my adviser Jeffrey Pressman was a great political scientist who had just written the seminal book on program implementation. It was called, simply enough, Implementation, with a subhead that read: “how great expectations in Washington are dashed” (OK, we political scientists study…
Why Express Lane Eligibility Makes Sense for States and Low-Income Families October 2, 2009 Issue Brief Express Lane Eligibility (ELE) is a new tool available to states to streamline enrollment and renewal of children in Medicaid and CHIP. It allows state Medicaid and CHIP agencies to utilize data and eligibility findings from other public need-based programs, such as Head Start or Food Stamps, and/or tax return…
Putting Children on the Express Lane to Health Insurance: Streamlining Enrollment and Renewal of Children in Medicaid and CHIP Through Express Lane Eligibility October 2, 2009 Issue Brief Express Lane Eligibility (ELE) is a new tool available to states to streamline enrollment and renewal of children in Medicaid and CHIP. It allows state Medicaid and CHIP agencies to utilize data and eligibility findings from other public need-based programs, such as Head Start or Food Stamps, and/or tax return…
Rural Health: Laying the Foundation for Health Reform October 2, 2009 Event The Alliance for Health Reform and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation co-sponsored this briefing to have a panel of experts answer questions about how some aspects of pending health reform proposals may have a substantial impact on rural care. What provisions in the various reform proposals affect rural health care?…