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  • Explaining Health Care Reform: Key Changes to the Medicare Part D Drug Benefit Coverage Gap

    Issue Brief

    On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law. The health reform law, as modified by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 which passed the House of Representatives on March 21, 2010 and is under consideration in the Senate, makes several key changes to the Medicare Part D drug benefit to reduce Part D enrollees’ out-of-pocket liability when they reach the coverage gap, known as…

  • How Much ‘Skin In The Game’ Do Medicare Beneficiaries Have? The Increasing Financial Burden of Health Care Spending, 1997-2003

    Issue Brief

    This study evaluated the changes in Medicare beneficiaries' health care spending between 1997 and 2003, and found beneficiaries spent a growing share of their income on health care. The results showed that median out-of-pocket health spending increased from 11.9% of income in 1997 to 15.5% in 2003, and about four in 10 beneficiaries spent at least one-fifth of their income on health care in 2003. Researchers using data from the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey found…

  • Most Believe Deficit Reduction Can Happen Without Cutting Medicare

    Feature

    Most Believe Deficit Reduction Can Happen Without Cutting Medicare Download Source Kaiser Family Foundation/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health, The Public’s Health Care Agenda for the 113th Congress (conducted January 3-9, 2013)

  • Analysis of Medicare Prescription Drug Plans in 2011 and Key Trends Since 2006

    Report

    This report presents findings from an analysis of the Medicare Part D marketplace in 2011 and changes in drug coverage and costs since 2006. It presents key findings related to Medicare drug plan premiums, the subsidy for low-income beneficiaries, the coverage gap, benefit design and cost sharing, formularies, and utilization management, based on data from CMS for all plans participating in Part D. The analysis was conducted jointly by Jack Hoadley and Laura Summer of Georgetown…

  • Comparison of Medicare Premium Support Proposals

    Issue Brief

    This brief provides a side-by-side comparison of recent proposals to transform Medicare into a premium support program and slow the future growth in Medicare spending. These proposals each would convert Medicare from a defined benefit program, in which beneficiaries are guaranteed coverage for a fixed set of benefits, to a defined contribution or "premium support" program, in which beneficiaries are provided a fixed federal payment to help cover their health care expenses. The brief compares…

  • Assessing the Effects of the Economy on the Recent Slowdown in Health Spending

    Issue Brief

    Introduction Health spending has been growing at historically low levels in recent years. The Office of the Actuary (OACT) in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reports that national health spending grew by 3.9% each year from 2009 to 2011, the lowest rate of growth since the federal government began keeping such statistics in 1960. Estimates from the Center for Sustainable Health Spending at the Altarum Institute suggest that the slowdown largely continued into 2012, with health spending…

  • Turning Medicare Into a Premium Support System: Frequently Asked Questions

    Issue Brief

    Premium support is a general term used to describe an approach to reform Medicare that aims to reduce the growth in Medicare spending. These FAQs raise and discuss basic questions about the possible effects of a premium support system for Medicare beneficiaries, the federal budget, health care providers, and private health plans.

  • The Burden of Out-of-Pocket Health Spending Among Older Versus Younger Adults: Analysis from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, 1998-2003

    Issue Brief

    UPDATED: An updated version of this analysis is now available online. Recent policy debate has focused on the issue of rising health care costs and whether it might be possible to control costs by requiring consumers to pay a larger share of their health care costs out of pocket. While most of the policy discussion has focused on people of working age, rising health care costs and the burden of out-of-pocket spending also affects seniors,…