The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality: "National Healthcare Disparities Report" The Center for Medicare Education: "How Seniors Learn" The Center for Studying Health System Change: "Patient Cost Sharing: How Much Is Too Much?" The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: "Losing Out: States Are Cutting 1.2 to 1.6 Million Low-Income People from Medicaid, SCHIP and Other State Health Insurance Programs" Children's Defense Fund: "The Children's Mental Health Resource Kit: Promoting Children's Mental Health Screens and Assessments" The Commonwealth Fund: "Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Looking at the Quality of American Health Care through the Patient's Lens" The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Center for Policy Analysis and Research: "Structured Inefficiency: The Impact of Medicare Reform on African Americans" The Institute of Medicine: "Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations" Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured: "Medicaid Matters: Hearing from Families," "An Overview of the Independence Plus Initiative to Promote Consumer-Direction of Services in Medicaid" The Kaiser Family Foundation: "Understanding the Health-Care Needs and Experiences of People with Disabilities: Findings from a 2003 Survey" The Kaiser Family Foundation and Hewitt Associates: "Retiree Health Benefits Now and in the Future" The Urban Institute: "Safety Net or Tangled Web? An Overview of Programs and Services for Adults with Disabilities," "Health Insurance Coverage of Children i Mixed-Status Immigrant Families"
From the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality:The National Healthcare Disparities Report is the first report in an annual series that tracks disparities in health care delivery pertaining to racial and socioeconomic factors. The report is designed to provide a comprehensive view of the scope and characteristics of differences in health care quality and access associated with patient race, ethnicity, income, education, and place of residence. Some have charged HHS with revising the report to "put a positive spin on a public health crisis." (December 2003)
From the Center for Medicare Education:The learning capacity of older adults has direct, practical implications for professionals trying to educate older people and their families about health care services and benefits, especially the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. How Seniors Learn discusses how older people learn and offers tips for adapting educational programs and materials to build on clients' cognitive strengths and compensate for some of the losses that can occur with aging. (Winter 2003) From the Center for Studying Health System Change:Responding to successive years of double-digit health insurance premium increases, employers continue to increase patients' financial stake in their care in an attempt to slow the rise in company costs. Patient Cost Sharing: How Much Is Too Much? examines how increased cost sharing, including higher deductibles, copayments, and coinsurance, raises patients' out-of-pocket costs. (December 2003) From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:Driven by flagging revenues and deep budget deficits, states have reduced spending in Medicaid and other health insurance programs by several means, including cutting eligibility, reducing the number of covered health services, and increasing cost-sharing. Losing Out: States Are Cutting 1.2 to 1.6 Million Low-Income People from Medicaid, SCHIP and Other State Health Insurance Programs examines policies implemented in state fiscal year 2003 or 2004 that cause low-income children or adults to lose health coverage. (December 2003) From the Children's Defense Fund:The Children's Mental Health Resource Kit: Promoting Children's Mental Health Screens and Assessments is designed to help promote access to and increase the availability of mental health screening and assessments for children through Medicaid and SCHIP (the State Children's Health Insurance Programs). The kit can help advocates gather information specific to their states, and it includes action strategies and a resources guide. (January 2004) From the Commonwealth Fund:Recent studies suggest that the U.S.-despite spending more per capita on health care and devoting to it a greater percentage of national income than any other country-is not getting good value for its money. Mirror Mirror on the Wall: Looking at the Quality of American Health Care through the Patient's Lens assesses U.S. performance relative to several other English-speaking countries through the patients' perspective. This report ranks the countries in terms of patients' reports on health care experiences and ratings on various dimensions of care. (January 2004) From the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Center for Policy Analysis and Research:Structured Inefficiency: The Impact of Medicare Reform on African Americans summarizes key aspects of the new Medicare prescription drug law and analyzes their likely effect on African-American seniors. This analysis answers three primary questions: Do the provisions of the new legislation increase African Americans' access to health care and prescription drugs?, Does the legislation increase the quality of health care provided to them?, and Does the legislation's fiscal structure promote the best interests of African American seniors and the African American community as a whole? (January 2004) From the Institute of Medicine:Insuring America's Health: Principles and Recommendations, the last in a series of reports on the consequences of being uninsured, calls for universal health coverage by 2010. The report offers five guiding principles by which all proposals for expanding coverage should be judged: any plan should be universal; continuous; affordable to individuals and families; affordable and sustainable to society; and it should promote access to high-quality care that is effective, efficient, safe, timely, patient-centered, and equitable. (January 2004) From the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured:Medicaid Matters: Hearing from Families is a video that profiles five families who have children covered under Medicaid. These families reflect the diverse people who are helped by Medicaid-families from all over the country of varying races, ages, and sizes. Each family also illustrates a particular health care need and shows how Medicaid assisted the family in obtaining necessary health care services. (January 2004)
The Independence Plus Initiative was established by HHS to give states expanded opportunities within Medicaid to allow for consumer direction of long-term services. This initiative provides beneficiaries with an individual budget to manage personal assistance attendants and a range of other services. An Overview of the Independence Plus Initiative to Promote Consumer-Direction of Services in Medicaid compares core program features with the Cash and Counseling Demonstration program and discusses several policy issues that arise in the implementation of this Initiative. (November 2003) From the Kaiser Family Foundation:Understanding the Health-Care Needs and Experiences of People with Disabilities: Findings from a 2003 Survey, which included people with permanent mental and/or physical disabilities, explores their health-care experiences and challenges in accessing and paying for care. Additional resources, including a video of people with disabilities discussing their health care challenges, are also available online. (December 2003) From the Kaiser Family Foundation and Hewitt Associates:Retiree Health Benefits Now and in the Future provides detailed information on retiree health programs offered by large, private-sector employers, including data on eligibility, benefits, premiums, and total costs in 2003. The report also offers insights as to what changes employers say they are likely to make in the near future. (January 2004) From the Urban Institute:Safety Net or Tangled Web? An Overview of Programs and Services for Adults with Disabilities begins by providing background information on the prevalence of health conditions in the low-income population and the economic problems faced by adults with disabilities. It goes on to describe 15 major public programs that serve low-income, non-elderly adults with disabilities. The paper also discuss promising policy options that take a more coordinated approach to serving the complex needs of adults with disabilities. (November 2003) Health Insurance Coverage of Children in Mixed-Status Immigrant Families uses data from the 1999 and 2002 National Survey of America's Families to examine the health insurance coverage of low-income citizen children. The report also looks at differences in health coverage between children whose families responded to the survey in English and those whose families responded in Spanish. (November 2003) Return to New on the Web Contents
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