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In this May post for the journal Women's Health Issues, Alina Salganicoff, Usha Ranji and Laurie Sobel explore Medicaid's role in providing health coverage for women over the past 50 years and outline key issues going forward. The post is now available here.
Continuing an effort to explore Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation in the states, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Blue Shield of California Foundation examined ACA implementation in California (CA) at a Sacramento, Calif. briefing and panel discussion on May 28. A state official, experts and advocates discussed issues and challenges related to implementation of the law, and the practical impact of providing coverage to roughly 4.5 million Californians who have coverage via the state marketplace or the Medi-Cal expansion.
California is a bellwether state for understanding the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Much attention has been paid to enrollment in California's new coverage options, such as the Medicaid expansion (Medi-Cal) and plans sold through ACA marketplaces (Covered California), and to changes in the uninsured from 2013 to 2014. However, less is known about how this coverage has affected people’s access to care and financial security, and why others remain uninsured. This report, based on the 2014 Kaiser Survey of Low-Income Americans aims to fill this gap by comparing the newly insured, previously insured and remaining uninsured across several of these important dimensions.
California is a bellwether state for understanding the impact of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Much attention has been paid to enrollment in California's new coverage options, such as the Medicaid expansion (Medi-Cal) and plans sold through ACA marketplaces (Covered California), and to changes in the uninsured from 2013 to 2014. However, less is known about how this coverage has affected people’s access to care and financial security, and why others remain uninsured. This report, based on the 2014 Kaiser Survey of Low-Income Americans aims to fill this gap by comparing the newly insured, previously insured and remaining uninsured across several of these important dimensions.
A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation examines the role of both Medicare and the Indian Health Service (IHS) in providing access to health care for about 650,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives who are age 65 and older or who have permanent disabilities.
More than 58 million Americans, or nearly 1 in 5, live in primary care shortage areas, where the supply of primary care physicians is not sufficient to meet the needs of the population. Particularly as the demand for primary care increases due to population growth, aging, and expanded insurance coverage, strategies to mitigate already sharp strains on primary care capacity are needed. This brief focuses on the opportunity to more fully tap the potential of nurse practitioners to increase access to primary care.
This brief analyzes state policies and insurer coverage decisions affecting the availability of abortion coverage in 2015 insurance plans offered through the Marketplaces. It finds that abortion coverage is unavailable in a total of 31 states, 24 of which have enacted laws that ban or restrict abortion coverage in plans sold through their Marketplaces and 7 of which have no abortion coverage restrictions but also have no Marketplace plans offering it.
Safety-net hospital emergency departments (EDs) are an important part of our health care system, especially, but not only, for the uninsured and others with low income. With multiple major changes unfolding in our system today, including the development of new models of health care delivery, payment reforms, expanded insurance coverage, and increasing demand for primary care access, safety-net EDs are a sort of crucible in which these shifts and transitions can be seen playing out. To understand more about their current experiences and challenges as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) begins to takes hold, we conducted interviews with ED directors in a convenience sample of 15 safety-net hospitals around the country in June and July 2014.
In this column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman and guest co-author Dana Goldman examine hospital productivity gains, and what they may mean for hospitals’ ability to absorb spending reductions.
In his latest column for The Wall Street Journal's Think Tank, Drew Altman and guest co-author Dana Goldman examine hospital productivity gains, and what they may mean for hospitals’ ability to absorb spending reductions. All previous columns by Drew Altman are available online.
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