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During the 2008 Presidential campaign now President Barack Obama announced a comprehensive health care reform proposal and laid out his positions on a number of other key health care issues. The two documents below summarize these campaign policies and positions.
The Kaiser Family Foundation maintains a number of primers providing overviews of key health care programs and issues. Written by Foundation staff, each primer provides key data and information that helps illustrate the topic and its relevance for the nation's health care system.
This Part D Data Spotlight documents the wide variations across the private stand-alone drug plans with respect to coverage of drugs, what enrollees pay for those drugs, and restrictions and limitations placed on their use. These variations have potentially significant implications for beneficiaries’ access to medications and out-of-pocket costs.
New: Medicare Advantage Plan Star Ratings and Bonus Payments in 2012 In 2012, Medicare Advantage plans will be awarded additional payments based on their quality ratings as a result of the 2010 health reform law.
This data spotlight examines the availability of gap coverage in the private Medicare Part D drug plans offered to beneficiaries in 2011, the first year of the phase-out of the gap, as required under the 2010 health reform law.
Spending on prescription drugs in the U.S. rose at a faster clip in 2009 than spending for hospital and physician care, a trend that is expected to continue through 2020. The desire to get a handle on drug spending is a focus not only in the U.S. but in other countries as well.
This brief commissioned by the Foundation examines factors that contributed to Medicare's lower-than-expected spending on prescription drugs under the Medicare Part D drug benefit that started in 2006. Since its launch, Medicare has spent about 30 percent less on Part D benefits than the Congressional Budget Office originally projected.
Launched in 2006, Medicare added a prescription drug benefit that relies entirely on private plans, while, for other benefits, beneficiaries have a choice between private health plans and traditional fee-for-service Medicare.
Medicaid: Purchasing Prescription Drugs A policy brief explaining how Medicaid purchases outpatient drugs and outlining the policy tools available to states to limit the rate of growth in spending on prescription drugs.
This testimony was delivered by Tricia Neuman, a vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, at a Senate Finance Committee hearing on the Bush Administration's Proposals for Medicare Modernization.
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