May 6, 2013 - Combining Medicare's hospital, physician, and prescription drug coverage with commonly purchased private supplemental coverage into one health plan could produce national savings of $180 billion over a decade while improving care for beneficiaries, according to a new study by researchers at The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and The Commonwealth Fund published today in the May edition of Health Affairs.
April 26, 2013 - Eighty-four million people―nearly half of all working-age U.S. adults―went without health insurance for a time last year or had out-of-pocket costs that were so high relative to their income they were considered underinsured, according to the Commonwealth Fund 2012 Biennial Health Insurance Survey.
April 8, 2013 - Countries around the world have realized some success in achieving the “Triple Aim” of health care: better health and better health care at lower cost. A new series of Commonwealth Fund–supported articles in the April issue of Health Affairs describes the lessons these successes hold for the U.S. health care system.
March 22, 2013 - Health insurance companies reported spending an average of less than 1 percent of the premiums they collected from policyholders in 2011 on activities directly supporting improvement of health care quality, according to a new Commonwealth Fund study.
March 13, 2013 - Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia have selected the health insurance plan in their state that will serve as the "essential health benefit" package sold by all insurers participating in the new health insurance marketplace and the individual and small-group markets beginning January 2014, according to a new Commonwealth Fund study.
February 1, 2013 - Only 11 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws or issued regulations to implement the Affordable Care Act’s major health insurance market reforms that go into effect in 2014, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
January 10, 2013 - A synergistic set of policies that would accelerate health care delivery system innovation could slow health spending growth by $2 trillion from 2014 to 2023, according to an analysis released today by the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System.
December 12, 2012 - Average premiums for employer-sponsored family health insurance plans rose 62 percent between 2003 and 2011, from $9,249 to $15,022 per year, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
December 5, 2012 - Consumers saw nearly $1.5 billion in insurer rebates and overhead cost savings in 2011, due to the Affordable Care Act’s medical loss ratio provision requiring health insurers to spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on health care or quality improvement activities or pay a rebate to their customers, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
November 15, 2012 - Two-thirds (69%) of U.S. primary care physicians reported using electronic medical records (EMRs) in 2012, up from less than half (46%) in 2009, according to findings from the 2012 Commonwealth Fund International Health Policy Survey, published as a Web First online today in the journal Health Affairs.
November 1, 2012 - Only 49 percent of workers in small businesses with fewer than 50 employees were offered and eligible for health insurance through their employer in 2010, down from 58 percent in 2003. In contrast, 90 percent of workers in firms with 100 or more employees were offered and eligible for health insurance in both 2003 and 2010, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
October 15, 2012 - New policies enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act will reduce costs and improve quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries, while rewarding high-performing Medicare Advantage plans, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
October 2, 2012 - The number of uninsured individuals is estimated to increase in every state and to 72 million nationwide—with children and low- and middle-income Americans particularly hard hit—under Governor Mitt Romney’s plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with block grants to states for Medicaid and new tax incentives, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
September 13, 2012 - The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, the name for the federal high-risk health insurance pool established by the Affordable Care Act, is serving its purpose as a bridge program, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
August 29, 2012 - The United States lags three other industrialized nations—France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—in its potentially preventable death rate, and in the pace of improvement in preventing deaths that could have been avoided with timely and effective health care, according to a Commonwealth Fund–supported study published as a web first online today in Health Affairs.