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Although regional variations in health spending have been studied for decades, there is renewed focus on this issue because of the role of health care costs in health care reform and the potential source of funds if addressing cost variations can yield savings.
The new health reform law contains a number of changes in the way health care is paid for, particularly in public programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
Special Needs Plans are a form of Medicare Advantage plan authorized to provide a managed care option for beneficiaries with significant or relatively specialized care needs, including Medicare beneficiaries who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid, beneficiaries living in nursing homes or other institutions, and beneficiaries with severe chronic or disabling conditions.
Enacted in 2003, Medicare’s Part D prescription drug benefit reflected an unprecedented and controversial new approach for Medicare, relying exclusively on private plans to provide health coverage and including an unusual gap in coverage. This analysis by Kaiser researchers examines in detail how the new model has worked since its launch almost four years ago.
This report provides the first comprehensive inventory of how HIV prevention is delivered across the country, based on a survey of the 65 health departments receiving direct federal HIV prevention funding, including every state and territory, plus six cities.
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.
Drew Altman, Larry Levitt, Gary Claxton My colleagues have worked on this column with me and I invited them to join me as authors.
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.
Medicare Coverage and Financing Download a printable .pdf of Health Care and the 2004 Elections: Medicare Coverage and Financing. IssueBackgroundPolicy Challenges Facing MedicareAssessing Candidate PositionsIssue The Medicare program is a valuable source of health insurance coverage for more than 41 million Americans.
It’s no secret that the response to the HIV epidemic domestically has not kept pace with the response to the global epidemic. And in an earlier column called America Has Gone Quiet on HIV/AIDS I wrote about the growing complacency towards the domestic epidemic revealed in our recent survey of the American people.
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