New on the Web 16: December 2002
We've collected information on several new reports and other resources available on the Web that we hope you'll find interesting and useful. Descriptions and links appear below.
Children's Partnership: "The Express Lane Eligibility Web Site"
Commonwealth Fund: "The Role of the Asset Test in Targeting Benefits for Medicare Savings Programs," "Assessing State Strategies for Health Coverage Expansion: Case Studies of Oregon, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Georgia," "Health Insurance Purchasing Cooperatives," "Portability of Coverage: HIPAA and COBRA"
Community Catalyst: "Addressing Oral Health Needs: A How-To Guide"
GAO: "Prescription Drugs: FDA Oversight of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising Has Limitations"
Kaiser Family Foundation: "Medicare at a Glance", "Kaiser Health Poll Report"
OMB Watch: "NPAction.org"
Urban Institute: "The Health and Well-Being of Children in Immigrant Families"
Children's Partnership
The Express Lane Eligibility Web Siteis designed to provide advocates, community leaders, and policymakers with the tools they need to provide health insurance to more than 4 million uninsured children enrolled in such public programs as Food Stamps and School Lunch. The site aims to increase children's health coverage by connecting Medicaid and SCHIP with other public programs, such as WIC and Food Stamps. This Web resource provides a central clearinghouse for information on Express Lane Eligibility strategies, including research, resources, and real-world examples to help communities and states undertake Express Lane Eligibility. (November 2002)
Commonwealth Fund
Over the last decade, several states have implemented innovative programs to increase the number of residents with health coverage. Assessing State Strategies for Health Coverage Expansion: Case Studies of Oregon, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Georgia profiles a few examples of such programs. It analyzes elements common to the states' successes, including strong leadership and commitment, seamless coverage for disparate groups, and involving providers and consumer advocates in program design. (November 2002)
Health Insurance Purchasing Cooperatives reports that cooperative purchasing arrangements in general have not been able to control enough market share to bargain effectively for premium reductions. They have also not been able to yield significant savings by centralizing administration. However, co-ops have succeeded in one important respect: they have enabled small employers to offer their employees a choice among different health plans. (November 2002)
Portability of Coverage: HIPAA and COBRA gauges how well current federal laws ensure that workers will be able to keep their health insurance when they change or lose jobs. The authors found that, while HIPAA (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) and COBRA (the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act) provide some protections, health coverage is not really portable for most Americans-workers cannot take their employer's coverage with them when they leave a job, and there are no guarantees that they will find comparable or affordable coverage elsewhere. (November 2002)
Congress created the Medicare Savings Programs to provide financial assistance to Medicare beneficiaries who struggle to pay premiums and out-of-pocket costs but do not quality for full Medicaid assistance. The Role of the Asset Test in Targeting Benefits for Medicare Savings Programs finds that less than half of those who meet income requirements also meet asset limits for eligibility, meaning that a substantial proportion of low-income people are unable to get help from the programs because of their assets. The report focuses on the methods used by some of the 21 states that have modified their asset tests to ease enrollment for low-income beneficiaries. (October 2002)
Community Catalyst
About 150 million Americans have no dental coverage, and the U.S. Surgeon General has described the problem as a "silent epidemic."
Addressing Oral Health Needs: A How-To Guideis intended to give organizations and communities ideas for addressing oral health needs. It does this by profiling the successes and challenges of various programs developed to increase access to dental health services and by describing coalitions that seek to influence public policy and state public health programs that are especially active in this arena. (Fall 2002)
GAO
Spending on direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of prescription drugs has tripled in recent years, yet the number of regulatory letters sent by the FDA to drug companies requesting that the companies remove misleading ads from circulation has decreased.
Prescription Drugs: FDA Oversight of Direct-to-Consumer Advertising Has Limitationsassesses the trends in spending on DTC advertising, overall promotion, and research and development. It also analyzes the effect of DTC advertising on drug spending and use. (October 2002)
Search for publication number GAO-03-177.
Kaiser Family Foundation
Kaiser Health Poll Report is a bimonthly report that provides key tracking information, including historical trends and in-depth analysis of public opinion about hot health care topics. The current featured topic is the public's attitudes towards HIV/AIDS. The last edition featured views about prescription drug coverage for seniors. (November/December 2002)
Medicare at a Glance provides a basic overview of the Medicare program, including how it is financed, who is eligible for coverage, and what benefits the program covers. It also describes sources of supplemental health coverage that fill the gaps in care that Medicare leaves, recent trends in the Medicare+Choice program, and current and future forecasts for Medicare spending. (October 2002)
OMB Watch
NPAction.orgis a new online resource for nonprofit advocacy. The site includes information on types of advocacy, a training and workshop calendar, rules and regulations, how to calculate your lobbying budget, advocacy polls, and links that may help you leverage your outreach capacity. (Winter 2002)
Urban Institute
Immigrant children are the fastest-growing segment of the population under age 18 in this country.
The Health and Well-Being of Children in Immigrant Familiesuses data from the 1999 National Survey of America's Families to measure immigrant children in three areas: family environment; physical and emotional health; and access to needed services. Among the findings are that children of immigrants are more likely than natives' children to be in fair or poor health and to not have a usual source of health care, and their health declines more rapidly as they age. (November 2002)
Return to New on the Web Contents
