New on the Web 8: April 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.
California HealthCare Foundation: "iHealthBeat"
Center for Studying Health System Change: "Treading Water: American's Access to Needed Medical Care, 1997-2001"
Commonwealth Fund: "Diverse Communities, Common Concerns: Assessing Health Care Quality for Minority Americans"
Community Voices: "A Poor Man's Plight: Uncovering the Disparity in Men's Health"
Health Privacy Project at Georgetown University's Institute for Health Care Research and Policy: "New Proposed Medicare-Endorsed Prescription Drug Card Assistance Program Fails to Protect Privacy of Medicare Beneficiaries"
Institute of Medicine: "Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care"
Kaiser Family Foundation: "Health Insurance Coverage in America: 2000 Data Update", "Prescription Drug Discount Card Programs: Implications for Medicare Beneficiaries," "Assessing State External Review Programs and the Effects of Pending Federal Patients' Rights Legislation"
Urban Institute: "Health Care Access for Uninsured Adults: A Strong Safety Net Is Not the Same as Insurance," "Children's Eligibility for Medicaid and SCHIP: A View from 2000"
California HealthCare Foundation
iHealthBeat, from the California HealthCare Foundation, is a free online news service that provides the latest updates about the Internet's impact on health care. The service includes a daily national news digest covering such topics as access, public health, research, and business and finance issues; in-depth analysis and commentary from health care and technology experts; a calendar of conferences and trade shows with links for additional information and online registration; and multimedia broadcasts of speeches and events. (March 2002)
Center for Studying Health System Change
Treading Water: American's Access to Needed Medical Care, 1997-2001 presents the results of the latest Community Tracking Study Household Survey from the Center for Studying Health System Change. This national Tracking Report found that despite a strong economy, fewer uninsured people, and record low unemployment, overall rates of unmet need and delayed medical care failed to improve. About one in seven Americans reported some difficulty in obtaining care in both 1997 and 2001, and, during that period, problems such as an inability to get timely appointments actually increased. (March 2002)
Commonwealth Fund
Diverse Communities, Common Concerns: Assessing Health Care Quality for Minority Americans presents the results of the Commonwealth Fund's 2001 Health Care Quality Survey. The survey revealed that Americans of color do not fare as well as whites on a wide range of health care quality measures. However, it also found that broad racial and ethnic categories can sometimes mask significant variation in health care experience, particularly within Latino and Asian American communities. (March 2002)
Community Voices
A Poor Man's Plight: Uncovering the Disparity in Men's Health examines the health status of African American, Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander, Native American, and mixed raced men. The report finds that men of color overall are less likely to have health insurance, less likely to use health care services, and less likely to have access to mental health, substance abuse, and oral health services. The report also includes descriptions of programs and projects in several communities that can serve as examples of how to promote and encourage change that will improve the overall health of men of color, particularly low-income men. (February 2002)
Health Privacy Project at Georgetown University's Institute for Health Care Research and Policy
New Proposed Medicare-Endorsed Prescription Drug Card Assistance Program Fails to Protect Privacy of Medicare Beneficiaries examines the limits on how drug card sponsors (PBMs) can use beneficiary information and disclose beneficiary information to others under the Administration's proposed Medicare drug discount card. The article is accompanied by a chart that provides a side-by-side comparison of the CMS proposed rule preamble and the actual proposed regulation text. (March 2002)
For the article, go to(http://www.healthprivacy.org/usr_doc/Rx_Program_Summary.pdf).
The chart can be found at (http://www.healthprivacy.org/usr_doc/Rx_program_chart.pdf).
Institute of Medicine
Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care, a comprehensive new report from the Institute of Medicine, concludes that racial and ethnic minorities tend to receive lower quality health care than whites even when access-related factors, such as patients' insurance status and income, are controlled. The report examines the health care environment and its relation to disparities, potential sources of racial and ethnic disparities in care, systemic and educational interventions, the need for data collection and monitoring, and needed research. (March 2002)
Kaiser Family Foundation
Prescription Drug Discount Card Programs: Implications for Medicare Beneficiaries is the title of testimony given by Patricia Newman, director of the Medicare Policy Project with the Foundation, for the Senate Finance Committee's hearing on the Bush Administration's Medicare modernization proposal. The statement provides an overview of existing prescription drug discount card programs, describes some features of the Administration's recent proposal for a Medicare-endorsed discount card program, and raises some of the key issues consumers face in comparing the programs currently available. (March 7, 2002)
External review is a formal process for resolving disputes between health plans and consumers that has been widely recognized as an important consumer protection. Assessing State External Review Programs and the Effects of Pending Federal Patients' Rights Legislation examines key features of state external review programs and how they very across states. It also compares features of those state programs with the external review provisions in the patients' rights bills passed by the House and Senate. (March 2002)
Health Insurance Coverage in America: 2000 Data Update uses year 2000 data (the most current information available) to describe health insurance coverage in the U.S., with special attention to the uninsured. This chart book examines the non-elderly population (those under 65) according to age, gender, family income, family work status, education, race/ethnicity, citizenship, and health status. The report includes separate analyses of children, adults, and low-income populations, as well as state-level tables that provide health insurance distributions for each state's non-elderly population. (February 2002)
Urban Institute
Children's Eligibility for Medicaid and SCHIP: A View from 2000 presents estimates of Medicaid and SCHIP eligibility for children up to age 17 using the eligibility rules in place as of July 2000. The results are based on data from the 1999 National Survey of America's Families. The Survey found that eligibility varied tremendously across states, and the brief includes state-specific data for 13 states: AL, CA, CO, FL, MA, MI, MN, MS, NJ, NY, TX, WA, WI. (March 2002)
All communities have some sort of public health system for the poor, often called a "safety net," which is comprised of public hospitals, community health centers, local clinics, and some primary care physicians. Health Care Access for Uninsured Adults: A Strong Safety Net Is Not the Same as Insurance examines the extent to which differences in the safety-net environment account for differences in access to and use of health care by the uninsured. The brief draws on representative samples of the population from 13 states (AL, CA, CO, FL, MA, MI, MN, MS, NJ, NY, TX, WA, WI) and focuses on low-income adults and on residents of metropolitan areas. (January 2002)
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