What's New
From Families USA:
Reinsurance: A Primer aims to help policymakers and advocates better understand what reinsurance is and how it can make coverage easier to obtain and more affordable. It also identifies some of the benefits of reinsurance to aid lawmakers as they design reinsurance programs to meet the needs of their states. (April 2008)
Dying for Coverage: For the more than 47 million Americans who are uninsured, lack of health insurance can have dire consequences—medical debt, missed care, and even premature death. We've created the first-ever state reports on the number of deaths due to lack of health insurance. (March 2008)
9 Million Children and Counting: The Administration's Attack on Health Coverage for America's Children examines how the President's two vetoes of CHIP reauthorization legislation, combined with the August 2007 CMS directive, will jeopardize health care for thousands of children. And the President's proposed fiscal year 2009 budget would hurt children's coverage even more. (February 2008)
From The California Health Care Foundation:
Haves and Have-Nots: A Look at Children’s Use of Dental Care in California found that uninsured children were least likely to have had a recent dental visit and most likely to have never visited a dentist. Denti-Cal (a part of California’s Medicaid program) beneficiaries were least likely to have ever seen a dentist compared to those with other types of insurance. The report suggests a number of public health initiatives to help these children get the dental care they need, such as increasing oral health outreach and education. (February 2008)
From the Commonwealth Fund:
Health Policy Reform: Beyond the 2008 Elections is designed to provide journalists with a context for understanding the fundamental problems that plague our health system, as well as policy options for addressing these problems. It points out that, while expanding access to health coverage is the single most important step to achieving a better system, there are a number of other policy steps that need to happen, from speeding the adoption of emerging information technologies to building new payment mechanisms that reward quality instead of quantity. (March 2008)
From the Employee Benefit Research Institute:
ERISA Pre-emption: Implications for Health Reform and Coverage provides an overview of state and local attempts at comprehensive health insurance reform and finds that ERISA limits states’ ability to carry out these reforms. For example, ERISA prevents states from establishing minimum levels of coverage for employer-based plans and limits their ability to fund health insurance subsidies for low-income adults through a tax. (February 2008)
From Health Affairs:
Willingness to Pay for Cross-Border Health Insurance between the United States and Mexico estimates the demand for a health insurance plan that would include preventive and ambulatory care in the U.S. and comprehensive care in Mexico. More than 60 percent of the surveyed population seemed interested in the product, and more than half were willing to pay between $75 and $125 a month if health officials offered the program in public hospitals. (February 2008)
From the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured:
Five Basic Facts on Immigrants and Their Health Care addresses questions about how immigrants use and affect the health care system, including their impact on the nation’s uninsured problem, their participation in public health coverage programs, and their use of hospital emergency rooms. The brief concludes that immigrants play a relatively small role in our current health care crisis. (March 2008)
From the Kaiser Family Foundation, National Public Radio, and the Harvard School of Public Health:
The Public on Requiring Individuals to Have Health Insurance presents survey results from 1,704 adults concerning their views about different approaches for expanding health coverage, including mandates. The survey questions dealt predominantly with the stances of the current presidential candidates. (February 2008)
From The Opportunity Agenda, Families USA, and The Commonwealth Fund:
Identifying and Evaluating Equity Provisions in State Health Care Reform explores how states can increase health equity by expanding health coverage and addressing issues of access to care, quality of care, social determinants of health, and infrastructure reforms. The report also evaluates existing health equity laws, regulations, and reform proposals in five states. (April 2008)
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