Financing

As Congress and the Administration increasingly focus on the nation’s budget deficit, many policy experts and several bipartisan deficit reduction panels have proposed significant changes to Medicare to reduce federal spending and address rising health care costs. This primer provides an overview of Medicare spending trends, how the program is…

As the Senate debates comprehensive health reform legislation, the idea of a Medicare buy-in option for uninsured adults aged 55-64 has re-emerged as a potential component of a reform plan. This Kaiser Family Foundation policy brief provides an updated profile of the more than 4 million uninsured people between ages…

Our group that works on health care cost issues just updated an analysis that sheds light on what’s really happening to people in the individual health insurance market, the issue Secretary Sebelius, a former Kansas insurance commissioner, and others have put in the spotlight by calling on Anthem and other…

Incorporating data from the 2009 Medicare Trustees’ Report, this chartpack examine the fiscal challenges facing the Medicare program as well as the public’s views on confronting them. Chartpack (.pdf)

This report provides Medicaid highlights from governors’ proposed state budgets for FY 2013, which starts July 1, 2012 for most states. While some states are beginning to see signs of economic recovery, many remain cautiously optimistic as they continue to experience the recession’s lingering effects. State revenues have not rebounded…

Summary of Key Changes to Medicare in 2010 Health Reform Law . This brief provides a detailed look at the improvements in Medicare benefits, changes to payments for providers and Medicare Advantage plans, various demonstration projects and other Medicare provisions in the law. It includes a timeline of key dates for implementing the Medicare-related provisions in the law.

The brief examines current funding for comparative effectiveness research, the provisions included in the current health reform legislation, and issues related to which treatments that might be studied, whether and how to weigh costs of care, and how such findings will be used and shared with health-care practitioners and the…

Drew Altman, Larry Levitt, Gary Claxton My colleagues have worked on this column with me and I invited them to join me as authors. As with pretty much every other discussion of health care going back to the days of Roosevelt, the great reform debate of 2009 (and now 2010)…

This analysis, performed by the Urban Institute for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, shows that the expansion of Medicaid under the health reform law will significantly increase the number of people covered by the program and reduce the uninsured in states across the country, with the federal…

This brief compares the Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program provisions in the new health reform law with pre-reform law governing those programs. The analysis focuses on Medicaid coverage and financing changes; how Medicaid and CHIP will interface with a new health insurance exchange and other Medicaid benefits and access…