Note: The 2024 election wraps-up in short order. KFF once again published a thoughtful analysis of competing positions on health care–in this case the Affordable Care Act. And we are republishing that here. Enjoy. -The Editors Health care is suddenly front and center in the final sprint to the presidential election, and the outcome will… Read More »
How patients are seeing their doctor is changing, and that could shape access to and quality of care for decades to come. More than 100 million Americans don’t have regular access to primary care, a number that has nearly doubled since 2014. Yet demand for primary care is up, spurred partly by record enrollment in… Read More »
It isn’t what supporters of single-payer health care might prefer. But a Medicaid-for-all program, based on the already expansive safety-net program, might open new doors to universal coverage. And rising familiarity with the program is creating a window of opportunity. My realization began with several conversations First, it was a friend going through a divorce… Read More »
Health care and public health loom large today, on the eve of the presidential election. From COVID-19 to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), this is now clearly a public health election. Let’s review what’s on people’s minds and what’s at stake. Where are voters on health issues? In February of this year, health care was… Read More »
Health care is on everyone’s mind. Here’s what presidential candidates say about healthcare: the 2020 edition. We are two weeks into the 2020 presidential primary season. On the Democratic side, muddled results in Iowa and very close results in New Hampshire have sprung some surprises. Currently at the top of the Democratic field are Pete… Read More »
VBID and alternative payment models comprise two approaches to reform with different incentives that influence underlying motives. The underlying principle of Value-Based Insurance Design (VBID) is to align patient out-of-pocket costs, or cost-sharing (deductibles, co-pays, etc.), with clinical value of services. Decreasing cost-sharing for high-value services and increasing cost-sharing for low-value services is the goal of… Read More »
Individuals experiencing homelessness are among the most medically, socially, economically, and politically vulnerable in our society. Because of this, patterns of service use by these individuals can often serve as indicators of the safety net capacity and overall wellness of the systems of care we have in place – like “canaries in the coal mine.”… Read More »
In 2019, mental health and opioid use disorders remain major public health issues. The most recent estimates suggest that 40 million adults experience mental illness in the U.S. and nearly 8 million adults experience both mental and substance use disorders at the same time. Individuals with mental illness also face higher risks of co-occurring chronic health conditions and… Read More »
A fundamental question in health reform is how changes to insurance policy affect health insurance coverage. Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, research has demonstrated that the ACA reduced the uninsured rate across the country [pdf]. By expanding eligibility for the Medicaid program, establishing marketplaces for the purchase of private insurance, providing… Read More »
[Editors’ note: This post was originally published on Feb. 7, 2018.] Now more than ever, we need a sensible, unified, national response to the opioid epidemic; a response that recognizes the gravity of the situation and the reality that opioid use disorder (OUD) is a chronic – and treatable – condition. While there are many… Read More »
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) had a roller-coaster of a year. It began with threats of almost certain repeal, followed by effort after unsuccessful effort to dismantle it. Then in the last days of 2017, there was the successful repeal of the individual mandate penalty. This was brazen politics, suspenseful and often agonizing. It… Read More »
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has a set of “Compare” websites – Hospital Compare, Nursing Home Compare, Home Health Compare, etc.; consumers and policymakers can compare physicians, long-term care hospitals, inpatient rehabilitation facilities, hospice care, and dialysis facilities today, and other settings may follow. Together with their associated health care quality measurement… Read More »
Over the last few decades, cigarette smoking has become a health burden concentrated primarily among low-income individuals in the U.S. In our recently published research study, Medicaid coverage expansions and cigarette smoking cessation among low-income adults, we sought to determine the relationship between recent expansions of Medicaid coverage and smoking cessation for low-income adults. Demographics… Read More »
Enrollment in Medicaid has been shown to enhance access to health care for our nation’s most vulnerable citizens. Yet despite these benefits, a substantial number of beneficiaries lose coverage at the time of renewal. An article by Xu Ji and colleagues, published in this month’s issue of Medical Care, demonstrates how critical maintaining continuous Medicaid coverage… Read More »
Annual routine check-ups, flu shots, and mammograms are among the basic preventive services for which the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 established a mandate for insurance plans: full coverage, with no out-of-pocket costs. In making it a little easier for some parts of the US population to access basic services, did the… Read More »
Emergency departments (EDs) nationwide are busy places. In some locales they are overcrowded. In places like Los Angeles and other dense, urban areas with high poverty, they are over-capacity to such an extent that they can grind to a halt for all but the highest priority cases. In years past, it was not unheard of for… Read More »
Smoking cessation is not innovative or trendy or even particularly exciting, but as a primary care doctor, in most cases helping a patient quit smoking is the best thing that I can do to help that patient over their lifetime. Without question. And for that reason, I always make it a priority to talk about it… Read More »
I once saw a breast cancer so advanced that the tumor had eroded through the woman’s chest wall. This wasn’t in a foreign country with little access to healthcare – it was in the city where I attended medical school: New Haven, Connecticut. The patient worked a full-time job and raised a family, but did… Read More »
In a recent Medical Care article, Guy and colleagues analyzed health insurance expansions among parents from 1999 through 2012 to assess the impacts of four different types of public and private expansions. They primarily examined changes in parents’ health insurance coverage, but they also analyzed whether expanding coverage for parents could “spill over” and raise coverage… Read More »
With the mania of the presidential election in full tilt and the election just days away, it’s hard to have a rational public discussion about health care. Supporters of the two presidential candidates have drawn a deep and divisive line (or rather a tectonic fissure) in the sand about health care reform. This is due, in great part, to the bombastic, and ultimately… Read More »
A small section of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) packs a potentially big punch: State Innovation Waivers allow states to ask the federal government for authority to change parts of the ACA, namely the individual and employer mandates, establishment of state exchanges, and financial help to purchase insurance. These waivers can be used by states… Read More »
President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) included provisions to gradually reduce the Medicare part D “doughnut hole” – a much-maligned gap in coverage that was an economizing feature of President Bush’s legislation. So, how have these changes affected drug use and spending by seniors? A new article in Medical Care provides insights. Under the standard part D benefit… Read More »
Since January 2013, most private insurance plans have been required to cover contraceptive services without patient cost-sharing. While health insurance plans have covered some methods of contraception with low cost-sharing, not all plans or methods have been covered equally. This is particularly the case of long-acting reversible contraceptive (LARC) methods, intrauterine devices (IUDs) and implants,… Read More »
In a new Medical Care article published ahead of print, Cheryl R. Clark, MD, ScD, and colleagues, of Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard, provide pre-ACA implementation estimates of income-based disparities in delayed or forgone care due to cost by race/ethnicity, by state-level Medicaid expansion status. Reforms can be unevenly implemented even if they address the primary causes of… Read More »
Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) are groups of health care providers, including doctors, hospitals, and other service providers, who provide coordinated care, reducing the need for patients to manage coordination of their own care. These organizations receive incentives from Medicare when they deliver care to patients efficiently. Providers make more money if they keep their patients healthy. Medicare… Read More »
Nearly halfway through the primaries, the Democratic primary contest between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders continues. And perhaps nothing sets these candidates further apart in the progressiveness of their agenda than their approaches to health care. In this post, let’s take a look at the vastly different approaches to health care proposed by candidates Clinton and Sanders, with a particular focus on primary care.
Who treats Medicaid patients? And is the quality of care provided by these individuals the same as you might expect from a clinician who takes only private insurance? An article in the April 2016 issue of Medical Care sought to answer these questions.
Although more than 92% of physicians reported seeing at least one Medicaid patient in 2011, the median proportion of Medicaid patients, for both PCPs and specialists, was less than 6%. This suggests that a small group of providers is responsible for seeing the majority of patients with Medicaid coverage…
As a current medical student, this research struck a nerve, particularly because of the emphasis on IMGs and medical school ranking. … What is more important to me is to understand what I, as a future primary care provider, can do. How do I ensure that people with Medicaid coverage get timely and appropriate referrals to specialty care? How can I expand my provider network to better equip them with the tools they need to ensure their long-term, lasting health?
The major goal of the Affordable Care Act was to expand health insurance coverage. The Department of Health and Human Services will tell you that the Affordable Care Act is working: more Americans are insured. About 16.4 million people gained insurance in the past five years. What do these numbers mean for racial and ethnic minorities who… Read More »
Increased use of recommended clinical preventive services among adults, such as colorectal and breast cancer screening and influenza vaccination, may save up to 100,000 lives per year and vastly improve life expectancy among the US population. Despite these benefits, recommended preventive services have been underused. In this post, I focus on colorectal cancer screening among adults… Read More »
As readers of Medical Care are no doubt aware, prescription drug expenditures for Medicare beneficiaries are high – nearly $90 billion in 2012. There is some evidence that Medicare Part D has reduced financial burdens, at least among some beneficiaries, but recent surveys suggest that around 4.4% of individuals ages 65 and older (including those not on… Read More »
Emergency department (ED) use has been increasing in the US for several decades, and some estimate that about half of all outpatient ED visits are potentially avoidable (also referred to as primary-care sensitive, or PCS). ED visits are expensive and may signify issues with access to, and quality of, care. Thus, reducing ED use is… Read More »