Pulling it Together: 19.7 April 16, 2009 Perspective Several years ago Joanne Silberner from NPR offered some advice I liked. Joanne said that the secret to effective communication was to “have a killer anecdote and a killer number.” Here is a killer number: 19.7. That’s the average number of years between major attempts at health reform since Harry…
Pulling It Together: Are We Headed for a Government Takeover of Health Care? July 29, 2011 Perspective Remember the “government takeover of the health care system” argument that critics of the health reform law have used? Well, last week the Office of the Actuary in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services published the latest projections of health spending in the journal Health Affairs. Attention focused mainly…
Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — August 2011 August 1, 2011 Poll Finding The August tracking poll examines the views of Americans without health insurance, with a particular focus on how they think the health reform law will affect them. Findings from the poll include: Although estimates are that 32 million uninsured Americans will gain coverage under the ACA, only about half of…
Pulling it Together: Business and Health Care Costs October 11, 2011 Perspective Hidden away on page 218 of our annual Employer Health Benefits Survey is a table that shows what employers think of the main strategies they have to control health care costs. More specifically, the table shows what the person in the firm responsible for its health benefits thinks, which is…
Snapshots: Health Benefit Offer Rates and Employee Earnings November 15, 2010 Issue Brief Employer-provided health insurance is the primary source of insurance coverage in the United States, covering almost 160 million people.1 About 90 percent of the non-elderly privately-insured population is covered by employer-sponsored plans, meaning that employer decisions about whether to offer health benefits will influence overall rates of insurance coverage in the…
Health Coverage for the Unemployed June 1, 2011 Issue Brief This policy brief outlines the challenges facing the unemployed as they seek to remain insured after losing jobs and employer-sponsored health coverage. In May 2011, 13.9 million people in the U.S. were unemployed. Of these, 6.2 million had been unemployed for six months or more and faced limited options to…
Testimony: State-Based Health Reform Efforts May 31, 2008 Event On June 16, 2008, Kaiser Family Foundation Vice President Gary Claxton testified about state-based health reform efforts as part of the Senate Finance Committee’s Preparing For Launch Health Reform Summit. In his prepared testimony, he examined the role of Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, as well as…
Chartpack: Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — September 2009 September 1, 2009 Poll Finding This document contains the chartpack from the September Health Tracking Poll. The survey was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted August 4 through August 11, 2009, among a nationally representative random sample of 1,203 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews…
Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — November 2009 November 1, 2009 Poll Finding The November Kaiser Health Tracking Poll shows little movement in measures of public opinion about health reform from recent months. Among the new findings is a ranking of the public’s top priorities from among a list of elements of the legislation. There were both similarities and differences in priorities across…
Chartpack: Kaiser Health Tracking Poll — December 2009 November 30, 2009 Poll Finding This document contains the chartpack from the December Health Tracking Poll. The survey was designed and analyzed by public opinion researchers at the Kaiser Family Foundation and was conducted December 7 through December 13, 2009, among a nationally representative random sample of 1,204 adults ages 18 and older. Telephone interviews…