New on the Web 42 (February 2008)
From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities: “State Budget Update”
From Consumer Reports: “On Their Own: Far from a Remedy, Individual Health Insurance Is a World of Pain”
From the Journal of the American Medical Association: “Health of Previously Uninsured Adults after Acquiring Medicare Coverage”
From the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured: “How Trends in the Health Care System Affect Low-Income Adults: Identifying Access Problems and Financial Burdens,” “Uninsured Children in the South, December 2007”
From the Kaiser Family Foundation: “Do We Know If Medicare Special Needs Plans Are Special?”, “Financing Medicare: An Issue Brief,” “Women’s Health Insurance Coverage”
From Mathematica: "Assessment of State Capacity to Identify and Track Disparities in the Leading Health Indicators”
From The New England Journal of Medicine: “Effect of Cost Sharing on Screening Mammography in Medicare Health Plans”
From Pediatrics: “Preventive Care for Children in Low-Income Families”
From the Urban Institute: “Uninsured and Dying Because of It”
From the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities
State Budget Update reports that, in 2009, 20 states will have budget concerns and a combined deficit of $34 billion. States will be forced to choose between cutting services, such as health care, and raising taxes. In the last recession, 34 states cut public health care programs, causing an average of 1 million people to lose coverage. (January 2008)
From Consumer Reports
On Their Own: Far from a Remedy, Individual Health Insurance Is a World of Pain details an investigation of individual health insurance and found that regulation of this market varies from state to state. Expenses normally run higher than insurance available through an employer. The investigation also found that 76 percent of uninsured adults said that they could not afford individual insurance.
(January 2008)
From the Journal of the American Medical Association
Health of Previously Uninsured Adults after Acquiring Medicare Coverage strengthens the argument that health coverage improves the health of adults who had previously been uninsured. Medicare improved the general health, mobility, and agility of patients 65 years and up, particularly those with cardiovascular disease or diabetes. (December 2007)
From the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured
How Trends in the Health Care System Affect Low-income Adults: Identifying Access Problems and Financial Burdens highlights the role insurance plays in allowing low-income adults to obtain health care and how it helps defray cost. Uninsured adults forgo health care more often than insured adults, or they incur large amounts of debt from paying out-of-pocket fees. (December 2007)
Uninsured Children in the South, December 2007 covers 17 Southern states and the District of Columbia. The study reveals the disproportionate numbers of uninsured children in the South compared to the rest of the country. It contains state-specific fact sheets with estimates of uninsured children and uninsured pregnant women. (December 2007)
From the Kaiser Family Foundation
Do We Know If Medicare Advantage Special Needs Plans Are Special? raises a question that researchers try to answer by looking at the history of special needs plans and the information that could help asses whether these plans perform differently from other Medicare Advantage plans. The report goes on to examine why companies establish the plans and the challenge of overseeing them. (January 2008)
Financing Medicare: An Issue Brief assesses Medicare’s predicted expenditures for upcoming decades and the fiscal challenges associated with the program’s growth. The brief also discusses the revisions that may be made to policies if spending trends remain the same, such as an eventual increase in the payroll tax or a cut in spending for services such as physician visits. (January 2008)
Women’s Health Insurance Coverage provides data on the percentages of women who are privately insured or have job-based coverage, those with Medicaid, and those who are uninsured. Although women make up three-quarters of Medicaid beneficiaries, childless women who are not disabled are almost never eligible for coverage no matter their income. (December 2007)
From Mathematica
Assessment of State Capacity to Identify and Track Disparities in the Leading Health Indicators provides state-specific information on health assessments, a leading indicator of the progress in achieving public health goals. Findings show that states typically keep their data readily available but that data for some specific health objectives and age groups are not available for every state. (December 2007)
From The New England Journal of Medicine
Effect of Cost Sharing on Screening Mammography in Medicare Health Plans examines the rates at which women with cost-sharing in their Medicare managed care plans get mammograms. The data show that even relatively small copayments were associated with significantly lower mammography rates. (January 2008)
From Pediatrics
Preventive Care for Children in Low-Income Families: How Well Do Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Programs Do? examines the way these public programs help encourage positive health behaviors in children. The report concludes that children enrolled in Medicaid and SCHIP received more preventive advice about health behaviors than those with private insurance or no insurance. (December 2007)
From the Urban Institute
Uninsured and Dying Because of It reports that, as the number of the uninsured grows, the number of preventable deaths does as well. From 2000 to 20006, an estimated 137,000 people from ages 25 to 64 died due to a lack of insurance. The report includes charts that show the total number of Americans who died and the numbers that died because they were uninsured. (January 2008)
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