Puerto Rico: Fast Facts
Puerto Rico: Fast Facts provides a quick snapshot of the island's demographic, health, and economic characteristics. It also provides some information on federal Medicaid rules, infrastructure, and fiscal challenges ahead.
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Puerto Rico: Fast Facts provides a quick snapshot of the island's demographic, health, and economic characteristics. It also provides some information on federal Medicaid rules, infrastructure, and fiscal challenges ahead.
Puerto Rico: Datos Básicos provee una descripción general del las características demográficas, y estadísticas de salud y la economía. También se da alguna informacion del gobierno, reglas federales de Medicaid, y asuntos corrientes que estan afectando el territorio, incluyendo a Zika.
This brief draws on a survey of and interviews with Medicaid officials in U.S. Territories, as well as other research, to examine key issues and trends in their Medicaid programs. Territories differ from the states on key demographic, economic, and health status indicators. Unlike in the states, where federal Medicaid funding is not capped, and the federal share varies based on states’ per capita income, Medicaid in the territories is subject to a statutory cap and a fixed federal matching rate.
The U.S territories – American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) – have faced an array of longstanding fiscal and health challenges that were exacerbated by recent natural disasters and most recently by the COVID-19 pandemic. Differences in Medicaid financing, including a statutory cap and match rate, have contributed to broader fiscal and health systems challenges for the territories. Congress is currently debating legislation to address the looming Medicaid funding cliff. This brief builds on data in an earlier brief released in May 2021 examining the effects of the pandemic and the implications of the fiscal cliff and incorporates findings from a questionnaire sent to Medicaid Directors in territories in the summer of 2021.
The U.S territories and the Freely Associated States (FAS) have faced an array of longstanding fiscal and health challenges, made worse by recent natural disasters and the coronavirus pandemic. Community health centers are an important part of health care system in the territories and FAS, providing access to a range of primary care services to low-income and vulnerable individuals. Based on findings from a survey of health centers, data from the Uniform Data System (UDS), and interviews with Primary Care Associations in those regions, this brief examines the roles of health centers in U.S. territories and FAS during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Medicaid, the provider of health insurance coverage for about one in five Americans and the largest payer for long-term care services in the community and nursing homes, continues to be a key part of health policy debates at the federal and state level. Key Medicaid issues to watch in 2020 include: Medicaid expansion developments; Section 1115 waiver activity; enrollment and spending trends; benefits, payment and delivery system reforms, and the implications of the 2020 elections.
La crisis de $73 mil millones de Puerto Rico ha sido tema de los medios de comunicación nacionales, y de debate en el Congreso en los últimos meses.
Kaiser Health News is covering the aftermath of Hurricanes Irma and Maria, which struck Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands in September 2017. Their coverage focuses on the public health and health care challenges facing residents on the islands.
In this video, residents of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands describe progress but also a long, slow road to recovery of the U.S. territories’ health care systems, economies and infrastructure six months after hurricanes Irma and Maria.
Six months after hurricanes Irma and Maria made landfall across Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, local officials described progress but also a long road to full recovery of the U.S. territories’ health care systems, economies and infrastructure during a public briefing Monday at the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Washington D.C. offices.
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