New on the Web 4: December 2001
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.
Commonwealth Fund: "How the Slowing U.S. Economy Threatens Employer-Based Health Insurance"
Community Voices: "Community-Based Health Plans for the Uninsured: Expanding Access, Enhancing Dignity"
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation: www.cbcfhealth.org
General Accounting Office: "Medicare+Choice: Recent Payment Increases Had Little Effect on Benefits or Plan Availability in 2001"
Kaiser Family Foundation: "A Consumer Guide to Handling Disputes With Your Private or Employer Health Plan," "Medicaid Coverage of Family Planning Services: Results of a National Survey," "Medicaid Coverage of Perinatal Services: Results of a National Survey"
National Health Law Program: "Waiver Watch"
Urban Institute: "Patterns of Child-Parent Insurance Coverage: Implications for Coverage Expansions"
Commonwealth Fund
How the Slowing U.S. Economy Threatens Employer-Based Health Insurance, a recent report issued by the Commonwealth Fund, sets out to document the link between loss of health insurance and unemployment. To that end, it summarizes recent findings of other reports and provides new analyses of employment-based health insurance, unemployment, and the economic consequences of lack of health coverage. These consequences include: lack of health insurance limits a person's ability to find a good job; an increased number of uninsured strains the health care sector; and more unemployed, more uninsured adults will further stress state budgets. (November 2001)
Community Voices
Community-Based Health Plans for the Uninsured: Expanding Access, Enhancing Dignity, a new report released by Community Voices and prepared by the Economic and Social Research Institute, focuses on community-based initiatives in five Community Voices learning laboratories around the country. To develop ways of providing health insurance for people who are not covered by either government programs or private insurance, these programs enroll uninsured individuals and families into organized health plans that provide a designated set of benefits. The sites featured are: Alameda County, California; Bernalillo County, New Mexico; El Paso, Texas; Ingham County, Michigan; and North Carolina. (November 2001)
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation
The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation has launched a Web site that reports on key legislation on public policy issues, health initiatives, and local events pertaining to the health of people of African descent worldwide. The site provides news, analysis, and scholarly references on topics that include: AIDS/HIV, diabetes, health care, heart disease, mental health, and public policy. The site also includes an interactive calendar of events and is searchable by disease topic. (November 2001)
General Accounting Office
Medicare+Choice: Recent Payment Increases Had Little Effect on Benefits or Plan Availability in 2001, a new report from the General Accounting Office, examines the role that the Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP Benefits Improvement and Protection Act of 2000 (BIPA) has played so far in stemming the tide of Medicare HMO departures. BIPA is the third in a series of increases in Medicare+Choice payments mandated by Congress, but the GAO found that the payment increases provided by BIPA "had little effect on the number of beneficiaries with access to at least one M+C plan in 2001" and that "it largely did not extend choice to beneficiaries who were not previously served by MCOs [managed care organizations]." The report also provides a brief history of this issue. (December 4, 2001)
Kaiser Family Foundation
A Consumer Guide to Handling Disputes With Your Private or Employer Health Plan, a free online consumer guide launched jointly by Consumers Union and the Kaiser Family Foundation, provides practical information to plan enrollees who are seeking a way to resolve a dispute with their health plan or to better understand their coverage before a problem arises. The guide provides information on internal appeals in all states and the District of Columbia, and on external appeals in the 40 states plus the District that have passed legislation containing such provisions. The guide also includes phone numbers and Web site addresses for the relevant agency in each state. (November 2001)
The Kaiser Family Foundation has undertaken a national survey in order to better understand how policy changes at both the state and federal level have altered the financing and delivery of family planning services under Medicaid. Kaiser presents the results of this survey, as well as a discussion of access to such services, in a new report titled Medicaid Coverage of Family Planning Services: Results of a National Survey. Among the key findings of the report: "…states vary substantially in the family planning services covered under their Medicaid programs and in the information provided to the program's enrollees about these services." (November 2001)
Medicaid has become one of the major funders of prenatal care and delivery services for women in the U.S., but during the 1990's, the Medicaid program changed dramatically with the broad adoption of managed care arrangements for Medicaid beneficiaries. To understand how this shift has changed the way states organize and finance perinatal care, the Kaiser Family Foundation conducted a national survey, and the results of that survey are presented in Medicaid Coverage of Perinatal Services: Results of a National Survey. Among the survey results was that, though most state Medicaid programs cover a comprehensive range of perinatal services, relatively few cover smoking cessation or breastfeeding support services, "two services that can have a dramatic effect and immediate effect on infants' health." (November 2001)
National Health Law Program
The National Health Law Program (NHeLP) has created a page on their Web site-Waiver Watch-devoted to monitoring Medicaid and SCHIP waiver requests, including HIFA waivers. The first item posted on the site is a link to the waiver request that Washington state recently submitted to CMS. Future postings will include other waiver requests, analyses of the waiver process in general and of particular waivers, and materials produced by state advocates that may prove useful in analyzing and addressing waiver requests. (November 2001)
Urban Institute
Patterns of Child-Parent Insurance Coverage: Implications for Coverage Expansions, a new brief from the Urban Institute, uses the 1999 National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) to examine patterns of insurance coverage for children and their primary parent. The brief provides statistics on discordant coverage between parent and child according to several variables. Among these statistics is that fewer than 60 percent of low-income children have a primary parent who is covered by the same type of insurance plan or program. The authors note that such differences "in type of coverage between children and their parents introduce complexity in the lives of families already stressed by factors in the home environment, the workplace, and school." (November 2001)
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