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Threadbare: Holes in America’s Health Care Safety Net This report describes the impact of coverage gaps in our safety net through the perspectives of those who provide care to the uninsured and first-hand accounts of the uninsured who are seeking care. Report (.pdf)
This report reviews the role of community health centers in the nation's health care safety net. Today, over 1,000 federally funded and “look-alike” health centers serve 14.3 million people, three-quarters of whom are uninsured or covered by Medicaid. As health centers look toward legislative reauthorization in 2006, they face several policy challenges reviewed in this report, including an increase in the uninsured populations, potential decreases in Medicaid revenue, and a need to increase health centers'…
This fact sheet describes the characteristics of the uninsured and explains the recent increase in this population. It also examines the difference that health insurance can make and how health reform is expected to cover millions more people.
This article presents findings from the 2004 Kaiser Women's Health Survey examining how health insurance coverage affects access to prescription medicines for non-elderly women. Results from the nationally representative telephone survey indicate that a lack of health insurance coverage is significantly associated with experiencing cost barriers to prescription medications, regardless of income level. These findings underscore the important role that insurance coverage plays in protecting women from out-of-pocket costs and for accessing prescription medicines. The…
This analysis, based on data from the 2007 Health Tracking Household Survey, examines how health coverage and access to care for non-elderly adults vary based on immigrants’ length of time in the U.S. and between immigrants, second generation Americans and third generation and higher Americans. It also identifies the primary factors contributing to lower health coverage rates and greater access barriers among immigrants. While, overall, immigrants have a high uninsured rate and face greater access…
This fact sheet provides state-level data from a Kaiser survey that found that a large number of states are using state funds to provide health coverage to legal immigrant children and pregnant women through Medicaid, CHIP or another state program. Under the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2009, states now have the option to provide federally matched Medicaid or CHIP to some or all of the legal immigrants they have been covering solely…
In 2009, despite the bleakest economic picture in years, states managed to safeguard and in some cases expand health coverage for children and parents in their Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Programs, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's annual 50-state survey of Medicaid and CHIP eligibility rules, enrollment and renewal procedures and cost-sharing Practices. That was in large part due to the substantial help that states received through the congressional reauthorization of CHIP and the…
A record 90 percent of children now have health coverage – more than a third of whom are covered by Medicaid and CHIP. Yet about 7.5 million children remain uninsured, including 5 million who are eligible for Medicaid and CHIP but not enrolled. Who are the at-risk kids? How are states faring with enrollment and retention? How will children and families be affected once major parts of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA)…
Related Resources Study Highlights Role of Geography and Plan Shopping Under Medicare Premium Support System Medicare Part D: A First Look at Part D Plan Offerings in 2013 The Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit - An Updated Fact Sheet Online Consumer Guide to Medicare The latest Visualizing Health Policy infographic is a flowchart illustrating the mechanisms by which people will get health coverage beginning in 2014. Medicare's Role and Future Challenges << Previous Visualizing Health…
This analysis uses the Center for Studying Health System Change's (HSC) 2010 Health Tracking Household Survey, the 2007 HSC Health Tracking Household Survey and the 2003 HSC Community Tracking Household Survey to describe the uninsured population and how it has changed over the past decade, especially between 2007 and 2010 when the recession caused many with previously stable coverage to become uninsured. It finds that although the uninsured population remains disproportionately made up of younger…
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