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This briefing provided an overview of the Medicare program and its role in the health care system. Panelists discussed who is eligible for Medicare, what benefits are covered and how the program is administered. Medicare financing and the program's role in health reform was also explained.
Medicaid programs are feeling the strain as enrollment grows while state revenues come in lower than projected. How are Medicaid directors coping? How is the recession affecting low-income individuals and families? This briefing, cosponsored by the Alliance for Health Reform and the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, addressed these and related questions.
Community health centers play an important role in providing care to uninsured and low-income individuals living in medically underserved communities. They rely on many different revenue sources and, over time, Medicaid has become a central source of funding for most health centers.
Safety net providers such as community health centers and family planning clinics have served a significant role in the provision of primary care and reproductive health care services to low-income and uninsured people, particularly women. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has a provision aimed at assuring that newly-insured individuals, as well as those without coverage, can continue seeing their trusted safety net providers, also called Essential Community Providers (ECPs). This brief reviews the definition of ECPs, examines the federal and state rules that govern the extent to which plans must include these providers in their networks, identifies the variation from state to state, and discusses the particular importance of these rules and providers for women’s access to care.
Safety-net hospital emergency departments (EDs) are an important part of our health care system, especially, but not only, for the uninsured and others with low income. With multiple major changes unfolding in our system today, including the development of new models of health care delivery, payment reforms, expanded insurance coverage, and increasing demand for primary care access, safety-net EDs are a sort of crucible in which these shifts and transitions can be seen playing out. To understand more about their current experiences and challenges as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) begins to takes hold, we conducted interviews with ED directors in a convenience sample of 15 safety-net hospitals around the country in June and July 2014.
This brief draws on federal data and our 2016 survey of health centers to provide a 2015 profile of health centers, analyze recent changes in patient coverage and service capacity, and compare health centers in Medicaid expansion and non-expansion states. It also considers the implications of a repeal of the ACA for health centers and the low-income communities they serve.
This fact sheet provides an overview of resident socio-demographic characteristics, population health, health coverage, and the health care delivery system in Louisiana both pre-Hurricane Katrina and in the era of health reform.
Community health centers are an integral part of the health care safety-net, providing access to care for nearly 22 million people in underserved communities. The ACA established trust fund for health center growth, and with increased patient revenues attributable to expanded coverage, health centers’ grant funding to support care of the uninsured can go further. This brief provides a 2013 data profile of health centers; highlights pre-ACA differences between health centers in Medicaid expansion and non-expansion states; and considers financial challenges facing health centers and the implications of state Medicaid decisions, the outcome of King v. Burwell, and the approaching sunset of the special trust fund for health centers’ capacity to ensure access to care for the communities they serve.
This infographic highlights Medicaid's role in trauma care.
This brief examines four safety-net hospitals to learn how they were preparing for the full implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), in order to gain additional insight into the strategies being used and challenges being faced among safety-net hospitals across the country.
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