Article and Policy Forum Examine Medicare, Health Reform and the Challenges Facing People With Disabilities September 8, 2010 Event Wednesday, Sept. 8, the Foundation held a policy workshop examining Medicare, health reform and the challenges facing people with disabilities. Younger Medicare beneficiaries with disabilities are much more likely than seniors in the program to report problems accessing and paying for needed medical services, Kaiser Family Foundation researchers report in…
Pulling It Together: Uninsured But Not Yet Informed August 26, 2011 Perspective If there is one thing there is general agreement on when it comes to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) it’s that it will help the uninsured. The estimates are that 32 million people will gain coverage under the law through an expansion of Medicaid and tax credits, which will help…
Raising Medicare’s Age of Eligibility to 67 Would Achieve Significant Savings, But Shift Costs To 65- and 66-Year-Olds, Other Individuals, Employers and Medicaid, New Analysis Shows July 18, 2011 News Release Study Estimates Two in Three People Ages 65 and 66 Would Pay $2,200 More On Average For Health Care in 2014 Than They Would If They Remained in Medicare MENLO PARK, Calif. — Raising Medicare’s eligibility age from 65 to 67 in 2014 would generate an estimated $5.7 billion in…
Pulling It Together: Implementation Is Forever April 5, 2010 Perspective Now that historic health reform legislation is law, everyone is rightfully focused on implementation. There are two very different ways to look at implementation. One is the more legalistic worm’s eye view, which sees implementation largely as the process of putting into effect what was written in the law. In…
Pulling it Together: Duals: The National Health Reform Experiment We Should Be talking More About June 1, 2012 Perspective The Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and 26 states are moving to launch a large scale managed care demonstration project potentially involving millions of the poorest, sickest, most expensive Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, the so-called dual eligibles. The experiment is getting more and more attention from policy experts,…
Pulling It Together: The Repeal Trap? January 5, 2010 Perspective Almost a year into an often acrimonious health reform debate, we stand poised for near certain passage of historic health reform legislation. Yet, somewhat perplexingly, there’s now talk about whether a law that has not even been enacted might actually be repealed and reporters have been calling asking what the…
Raising the Age of Medicare Eligibility: A Fresh Look Following Implementation of Health Reform July 18, 2011 Report Several major deficit-reduction and entitlement reform proposals include raising Medicare’s age of eligibility from 65 to 67 as a way of improving Medicare’s solvency. This Kaiser Family Foundation report estimates the expected effects of such a change on the federal budget, as well as on affected seniors’ out-of-pocket costs, employers,…
States Focus on Cost Containment as a Loss of Federal Stimulus Funds Means State Costs for Medicaid Will Jump in FY 2012 October 27, 2011 News Release NEWS RELEASE Thursday, October 27, 2011 New 50-State Survey Finds Cuts In Provider Payments And Changes In Delivery Of Services WASHINGTON, D.C. – Faced with the end of stimulus money and a continuing weak economy, Medicaid officials in virtually every state are enacting a variety of cost cutting measures as states’…