Medicare

As the Senate debates comprehensive health reform legislation, the idea of a Medicare buy-in option for uninsured adults aged 55-64 has re-emerged as a potential component of a reform plan. This Kaiser Family Foundation policy brief provides an updated profile of the more than 4 million uninsured people between ages…

Our group that works on health care cost issues just updated an analysis that sheds light on what’s really happening to people in the individual health insurance market, the issue Secretary Sebelius, a former Kansas insurance commissioner, and others have put in the spotlight by calling on Anthem and other…

This fact sheet examines the similarities and differences between the five-year demonstrations in Massachusetts and Washington state to integrate care and align financing for people dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid. The states finalized memoranda of understanding (MOUs) with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in fall 2012, and…

Incorporating data from the 2009 Medicare Trustees’ Report, this chartpack examine the fiscal challenges facing the Medicare program as well as the public’s views on confronting them. Chartpack (.pdf)

The September Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds that public support for health reform ended its summer slide, reversed course and moved modestly upwards in September. The survey also finds initial majority support for taxing expensive health plans and imposing fees on insurers to pay for reform. Fifty-seven percent of Americans…

This document contains the key findings from the September Health Tracking Poll. The survey was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted September 11 through September 18, 2009, among a nationally representative random sample of 1,203 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone…

Summary of Key Changes to Medicare in 2010 Health Reform Law . This brief provides a detailed look at the improvements in Medicare benefits, changes to payments for providers and Medicare Advantage plans, various demonstration projects and other Medicare provisions in the law. It includes a timeline of key dates for implementing the Medicare-related provisions in the law.

The brief examines current funding for comparative effectiveness research, the provisions included in the current health reform legislation, and issues related to which treatments that might be studied, whether and how to weigh costs of care, and how such findings will be used and shared with health-care practitioners and the…

Drew Altman, Larry Levitt, Gary Claxton My colleagues have worked on this column with me and I invited them to join me as authors. As with pretty much every other discussion of health care going back to the days of Roosevelt, the great reform debate of 2009 (and now 2010)…

  This Medicare Advantage Data Spotlight provides an overview of recent changes made to the Medicare Advantage program and examines trends in plan participation, premiums and certain benefits. About 12 million people, or nearly a quarter of the Medicare population, are enrolled in Medicare Advantage, the privately administered plans that…