Affordable Care Act

 Download PDF Racial and ethnic disparities in health care – whether in insurance coverage, access, or quality of care – are one of many factors producing inequalities in health status in the United States.1  Eliminating these disparities is politically sensitive and challenging in part because their causes are intertwined with…

Health care remains among the top three election issues voters want to hear the presidential candidates discuss. Kaiser’s new series of election briefs frame the challenges the heath care system faces, provide basic facts, and offer questions to assess the presidential candidates’ plans on key health policy issues. Check back…

 Download PDF Women consistently cite health care as one of the top issues they want the Presidential candidates to address, reflecting their experiences with the health care system as patients, mothers, and caregivers for frail and disabled family members.  Women’s priorities for health care reform cut across many critical topics,…

This analysis, published in the November 6, 2008, New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), finds that seven in ten registered voters say major changes are needed in the U.S. health care system. The article is the second in a series of reports published in NEJM examining how the election can…

Download PDF Issue Medicare is a valuable source of health insurance for nearly 45 million Americans – mainly seniors ages 65 and older, but also 7 million younger adults with permanent disabilities.  Before Medicare was signed into law in 1965, about half of all seniors lacked hospital insurance.  Today, virtually…

Florida Medicaid Reform Waiver: Early Findings and Current StatusThis policy brief provides an overview of the Florida Medicaid reform and a summary of available research findings to date from various evaluators of the program. It was issued at the same time as a separate Health Affairs article highlighting findings from…

Health Affairs Article: Florida's Medicaid Reform: Informed Consumer Choice?Florida's Medicaid reform program aims to encourage consumer choice and market competition by giving health plans new authority to vary benefits and having enrollees choose among the different plans. However, about three in 10 enrollees were not aware that they needed to…

2008 Update on Consumers’ Views of Patient Safety and Quality InformationAn updated examination of consumers’ views on health care quality information reveals major challenges remain in providing the public with comparative quality information and encouraging its use. The 2008 Update on Consumers’ Views of Patient Safety and Quality Information finds…

This policy brief examines the underlying shifts in health insurance coverage in 2007, which resulted in a 1.5 million decrease in the number of uninsured people under age 65, due to increased public coverage. This includes about 300,000 in Massachusetts, which implemented its comprehensive health reform that year. The brief…

Trends in Access to Care Among Working-Age Adults, 1997-2006This policy brief finds about 39 million working-age adults nationally reported cost as a barrier to receiving needed health care in 2006, a number that grew by an average of 1 million people annually over the decade studied. Uninsured working-aged adults experienced…