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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) has been distilled into an ideological battle over the role of government. A government-sponsored "public option" has been off the table for a while now,…
The Alliance for Health Reform, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and several cosponsors held the final event in a three-part series of discussions on costs, the factors driving them up and what (if anything) can be done about them. This briefing and others in the series take an in-depth look at a select few of the most often cited health care cost drivers. This briefing focuses on efforts to improve health and health care at lower…
This March 2007 issue brief, commissioned by the Kaiser Family Foundation, provides a basic introduction to the reimbursement system for private Medicare drug plans. It explains the system of plan bidding and payment, including the special provisions for low-income enrollees, and considers how aspects of the payment system may affect the total cost of the drug benefit over time, the cost of coverage for beneficiaries and the variety and quality of available plans. Mark Merlis…
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,…
This data spotlight examines changes in the availability and premiums of private Medicare Advantage options for Medicare beneficiaries in 2010 as the annual open enrollment period begins. While the number of plans available in 2010 declined somewhat from 2009, the analysis finds that Medicare beneficiaries on average have 33 Medicare Advantage plans to choose from. For Medicare Advantage enrollees who stay in the same plan in 2010, monthly premiums will increase by 32 percent on…
The health reform law contains provisions that aim to improve the delivery and coordination of services for persons enrolled in both Medicaid and Medicare, known as the dual eligibles. This population includes individuals with some of the most severely disabling chronic conditions. While the higher costs associated with services to dual eligibles is well-known, information on how spending is distributed across these programs is less understood. This study uses linked Medicare and Medicaid data to…
This brief summarizes key findings from the full collection of 2010 Part D Data Spotlights examining key trends in the private stand-alone drug plans available to Medicare beneficiaries. The spotlight is one in a series analyzing key aspects of the Medicare Part D drug plans that will be available to beneficiaries in 2010. The analysis was conducted jointed by Jack Hoadley and Laura Summer of Georgetown University, Elizabeth Hargrave of NORC at the University of Chicago,…
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…
Dual Eligible Beneficiaries as a Percent of Medicare and Medicaid Enrollment and Spending, 2008 Download Source Medicare spending and enrollment estimates from Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of the 2008 CMS Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey Cost and Use File; Medicaid spending and enrollment estimates from Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured and Urban Institute analysis of data from FY 2008 MSIS and CMS Form 64
Medicaid Costs are Shared by the States and the Federal Government Download Source SOURCE: Federal Register, January 21, 2014 (Vol. 79, No. 13), pp 3385-3388, at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2014-01-21/pdf/2014-00931.pdf.
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