Health Costs

This report illustrates the financial stakes for Medicare beneficiaries when making choices about supplemental insurance coverage, by examining how much people on Medicare could spend out-of-pocket including premiums and other cost-sharing requirements under different supplemental insurance options. To assess the cost implications of choosing between different Medigap and Medicare+Choice insurance…

The Health Rights Hotline, based in Sacramento, California, wasestablished in 1997 as a model to demonstrate and assess how anindependent assistance program can help consumers successfully accesscare, navigate the health care system, and improve the system for allhealth care consumers. Based on the experiences of the Health Rights Hotline, this…

A hotly debated issue in Congress has been the issue of when health maintenance organizations, health insurers, and those who administer health benefit plans should be financially liable to their plan participants for a denial of a claim or for damages for any injuries that result from such denials (known…

Thirty-five percent of all California Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in a M+C plan, far in excess of the 14 percent rate nationwide. This report seeks to identify what lessons for the nation can be drawn from the California M+C experience, as Congress debates the implications of major withdrawals from the…

An issue brief that looks at mandated health insurance benefits and the tradeoffs among benefits, coverage, and costs. It explores the debate over mandated benefits legislation, the evidence about the impact of mandates, the status of mandated benefits in other states and in California.

This report by Michael Gluck of the Georgetown University Institute for Health Care Research and Policy examines several ways in which the federal government influences the availability and cost of prescription drugs, including 1) intellectual property protection the laws and policies which regulate and influence patents and generic competition (include…

To help understand why M+C plans have exited or limited their participation in the M+C program in recent years, this report presents an empirical analysis of the factors associated with plan withdrawals between 1999 and 2001. This analysis explores factors such as M+C payment levels, local market characteristics, and individual…

This report addresses national managed care firms participation in M+C and the factors influencing their decision processes about M+C products. Based on interviews with executives and senior staff of national managed care firms, this report examines how eight national firms strategically position their M+C product, including the process that firms…

New NPR/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard Kennedy School of Government Survey on Health Care A new survey by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard s Kennedy School of Government finds that many Americans have real problems when it comes to accessing and paying for health care, and even if they haven’t…

A new survey by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Harvard s Kennedy School of Government finds that many Americans have real problems when it comes to accessing and paying for health care, and even if they haven’t yet faced a problem, many worry about getting and paying for care…