A Consumer Guide to Handling Disputes with Your Employer or Private Health Plan July 30, 2005 Report Most people get their health care through some form of managed care plan – a health maintenance organization, preferred provider organization, or point-of-service option. Most of the time, people receive the care they need, but the potential exists for disagreements over the services that will be provided or paid for…
Online Tools for Consumer-Directed Health Plans January 1, 2005 Event On Jan. 25, 2005, Kaiser Family Foundation hosted a demonstration of the online tools made available to enrollees in consumer-directed health plans. Executives from Humana and Lumenos — two major firms in the consumer-directed care market — conducted real-time demonstrations of their consumer web tools to show how enrollees might…
Update on Individual Health Insurance July 30, 2004 Report This report provides information about the individual health insurance market using data from the largest vendor of this type of insurance, eHealthInsurance. The report includes who is buying individual insurance, what they are actually paying for the insurance, and buying patterns. It is the first in an up-coming series of…
Coverage and Cost Impacts of the President’s Health Insurance Tax Credit and Tax Deduction Proposals February 29, 2004 Issue Brief This issue brief looks at the coverage impacts and costs of two components of the administration’s FY 2005 budget proposals to increase the affordability of health insurance: a new tax credit for people purchasing non-group health insurance and a new tax deduction for premiums for high-deductible, non-group health insurance policies.…
Regulation of Private Long-Term Care Insurance: Implementation Experience and Key Issues February 27, 2003 Report Regulation of Private Long-Term Care Insurance: Implementation Experience and Key IssuesWhile private long-term care insurance (LTCI) has been available since the mid-1970s, its popularity has grown rapidly in recent years, and Congress is considering proposals that would further encourage LTCI purchase through expanded tax subsidies. Yet there has been little…
Private Long-Term Care Insurance: Who Should Buy It and What Should They Buy? February 27, 2003 Report Private Long-Term Care Insurance: Who Should Buy It and What Should They Buy?Despite the growing interest in private long-term care insurance (LTCI), there has been little independent examination of how much protection LTCI policies provide consumers or whether LTCI policies are a worthwhile purchase for people of average means. This…
How Private Insurance Works: A Primer March 31, 2002 Report This primer, prepared by Gary Claxton of the Institute for Health Care Research and Policy at Georgetown University, examines the structure and operation of private health insurance including the types of organizations that provide it, how managed care is delivered, and how risk pools work and describes how private health…
New Survey on Consumer Experiences with Health Plans August 2, 2001 Report Survey on Consumer Experiences with Health Plans A Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health survey found that more than six in ten privately insured American adults under age 65 give their health plans a grade of A or B, but nearly half report having some type of problem with…
How Accessible is Individual Health Insurance for Consumers in Less-Than Perfect Health? June 1, 2001 Report This report documents the findings of a study examining access to health insurance coverage in the individual market for people with health problems. Seven hypothetical consumers with varying health conditions were defined and insurers and HMOs in eight different markets around the country were asked to consider them as though…
How Accessible is Individual Health Insurance for Consumer in Less-Than-Perfect Health? June 1, 2001 Report This report documents the findings of a study examining access to health insurance coverage in the individual market for people with health problems. Seven hypothetical consumers with varying health conditions were defined and insurers and HMOs in eight different markets around the country were asked to consider them as though…