The Medicaid Eligibility Maze: Coverage Expands, but Problems Persist August 30, 1999 Report This report examines Medicaid eligibility policies and operations in five states – California, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota and Wisconsin – following initial changes introduced by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 and the new Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The study findings suggest that eligibility policy…
Managed Care and Low-Income Populations: Four Years’ Experience with the Oregon Health Plan August 30, 1999 Report This report updates an earlier study of Oregon's experience with restructuring their Medicaid programs. It is one of a series of reports from The Kaiser/Commonwealth Low-Income Coverage and Access Project. This project examines how changes in the Medicaid Program have affected health insurance coverage and access to care for the…
Access To Health Care: July 30, 1999 Report Promises and Prospects For Low-Income AmericansThis book explores critical issues affecting access to health care for low-income Americans by assessing the importance of expansions of health coverage for the poor, the emerging challenges providers who serve low-income and uninsured populations face in a rapidly evolving health care delivery system, and…
A Profile of the Low-Income Uninsured July 30, 1999 Issue Brief This policy brief provides an overview of the low-income, uninsured population. Based on an analysis of the March 1998 Current Population Survey, the report discusses the demographic characteristics of this vulnerable population. It also presents information detailing health insurance coverage for low-income children and adults, as well as trends in…
Enrollment Increases in State CHIP Programs: December 1998 to June 1999 July 2, 1999 Report A new survey of state officials, conducted by Vernon Smith of Health Management Associates for the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, found that the number of children enrolled in stateCHIP programs has grown to more than 1.3 million in June 1999 from about 835,000 in December 1998. The…
Survey of Physicians and Nurses July 1, 1999 Poll Finding A national random survey of 1053 doctors and 768 nurses on their experiences with and attitudes towards health plans. The survey provides quantitative information from doctors and nurses about their non-elderly patients, as well as verbatim descriptions of patient experiences with health plan decisions, including doctors’ judgments on the consequences…
The Key to the Door: Medicaid’s Role in Improving Health Care for Women and Children May 30, 1999 Report This article, authored by Diane Rowland, Alina Salganicoff, and Patricia Keenan of the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, assesses Medicaid’s contributions as a public financing program for health insurance coverage for the poor over the last three decades. It reviews Medicaid’s impact on the low-income population and discusses…
Health Insurance Coverage of Low-Wage Workers May 30, 1999 Fact Sheet This fact sheet summarizes the reasons why low-wage workers are less likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance than workers with higher incomes and therefore, are more likely to be uninsured. Fact Sheet
Managed Care For Low-Income Populations with Special Needs: The Tennessee Experience May 1, 1999 Report This paper provides a targeted review of Tennessee’s experience providing health care to individuals with special needs under TennCare, its Medicaid managed care initiative. The first part reviews the experience of TennCare Partners, the behavioral health carve-out program created in 1996. The second part reviews how TennCare’s structure affects the disabled and chronically ill.
Regulating the Quality of Abortion Services: Politics or Good Medicine? April 30, 1999 Report A growing trend by state legislatures to pass tough regulations on abortion services begs the questions: Do these rules help to ensure the health and safety of abortion patients and the quality of abortion services? Or, as some abortion rights groups have suggested, are they designed to put abortion providers…