The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news.
Pulling it Together from Drew Altman: Multiple Agendas for Controlling Health Care Costs
In what would be a domestic policy trifecta, we may be headed for interconnected big debates about economic recovery, entitlement programs and health reform. A core issue in the entitlement and health reform debates is the problem of rising health care costs. President Obama, now apparently fully briefed on the…
Policy Insights Read PostWindow of Opportunity?
Beginning this Spring, between expected approval of an economic stimulus package and the start of campaigning for the midterm election, there will be a rare window of opportunity for passage of major health reform legislation. History suggests that momentum can be lost if policymakers do not move quickly to seize…
Policy Insights Read PostPulling It Together: The “R” Word Is Back
Longer ago than I care to admit, I got my start in health policy at M.I.T. when I wrote a book about health care regulation. The book was about a long forgotten attempt to rationalize the health care system through an elaborate health planning program set up in the seventies under the National…
Policy Insights Read PostPulling It Together: Keeping the Health Reform Coalition Together
We could be headed for a new schism in the debate about health reform. Not the familiar gulf between advocates of the market and government, or the predictable one between deficit hawks and spenders, but a new one that crosses traditional partisan and ideological lines between advocates of long-term reform of the health care delivery…
Policy Insights Read PostPulling It Together: What Do We Want Health Insurance To Be?
Trends in the health insurance marketplace show substantial growth in high deductible health plans, especially among smaller firms, where 35% of workers are now covered by plans with a deductible of $1,000 or more. That’s according to our recently released employer health benefits survey, which we have been conducting now…
Policy Insights Read PostPulling It Together: A Recovery Raises Expectations Too
New Orleans is a city still struggling with the aftermath of Katrina and the levee breaks. The people of New Orleans feel that the nation and the federal government have largely forgotten them. Those are the results of our 2008 survey of the people of New Orleans, the second in a…
Policy Insights Read Post