Health Care and the 2004 Elections: Medicare Coverage and Financing August 31, 2004 Issue Brief Medicare Coverage and Financing Download a printable .pdf of Health Care and the 2004 Elections: Medicare Coverage and Financing. IssueBackgroundPolicy Challenges Facing MedicareAssessing Candidate PositionsIssueThe Medicare program is a valuable source of health insurance coverage for more than 41 million Americans. Medicare enjoys broad public support, but the program faces…
Participation in Welfare and Medicaid Enrollment – Issue Paper August 30, 1998 Report Participation in Welfare and Medicaid EnrollmentSeptember 1998The number of families receiving cash assistance through Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) or Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) programs has decreased dramatically in recent years. From March 1994 to March 1998, caseloads fell by 35%, declining from 5 million to…
Medicare Now and in the Future October 1, 2008 Issue Brief Download PDF Issue Medicare is a valuable source of health insurance for nearly 45 million Americans – mainly seniors ages 65 and older, but also 7 million younger adults with permanent disabilities. Before Medicare was signed into law in 1965, about half of all seniors lacked hospital insurance. Today, virtually…
Women’s Health and Election 2008 October 6, 2008 Issue Brief Download PDF Women consistently cite health care as one of the top issues they want the Presidential candidates to address, reflecting their experiences with the health care system as patients, mothers, and caregivers for frail and disabled family members. Women’s priorities for health care reform cut across many critical topics,…
Pulling it Together: This Could Be the Next Big Issue in Health Reform August 20, 2009 Perspective No, this is not about “death panels.” The town hall meetings. The media coverage of the town hall meetings. Media polls about how the American people feel about the town hall meetings. And even the media myth busting and fact checking about the most extreme claims made at the town…
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 Yet, somewhat perplexingly, there’s now talk about whether a law that has not even been enacted might actually be repealed and reporters have been calling asking what the…
Covering the Uninsured: Options for Reform September 16, 2008 Issue Brief Download PDF Key Facts on the Uninsured In 2007, 45 million nonelderly people in the United States lacked health coverage More than eight in ten uninsured people (81%) come from working families About two-thirds of the nonelderly uninsured are from low-income families (income below 200% of poverty, about $42,400 for…
Pulling it Together from Drew Altman: Multiple Agendas for Controlling Health Care Costs January 26, 2009 Perspective In what would be a domestic policy trifecta, we may be headed for interconnected big debates about economic recovery, entitlement programs and health reform. A core issue in the entitlement and health reform debates is the problem of rising health care costs. President Obama, now apparently fully briefed on the…
Pulling it Together: Anticipating the Polls about Health February 5, 2010 Perspective Tuesday, February 2nd marked a milestone of sorts in the health reform debate: there was no story on health reform in the New York Times (national edition). I haven’t done a study, but as a professional New York Times (NYT) reader, I am virtually certain that this is the first…
Pulling it Together: Health Reform’s Six-Month Checkup September 23, 2010 Perspective Six months after its enactment, there are two totally different stories to tell about the health-reform law. The public remains split on the law largely along traditional partisan lines. Confusion and misperception are rampant, with more than a third of seniors still thinking the law contains “death panels” (it does…