December 29, 2009 - A gap exists between policy makers' expectations that current commercial electronic medical records can improve coordination of patient care and clinicians' real-world experiences with EMRs, according to a study by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) published online in The Journal of General Internal Medicine.
December 18, 2009 - An overwhelming majority—88 percent—of young adults across the political spectrum think it is important for Congress and the President to pass health reform legislation that would assure affordable health insurance for all and improve health care, according to a Commonwealth Fund survey released today.
November 5, 2009 - A new Commonwealth Fund survey of primary care physicians in 11 countries reveals that the United States lags far behind its peers in key measures of access, quality, and use of health IT—undermining doctors' efforts to provide timely, high-quality care.
November 2, 2009 - A vast majority of leaders in health care and health policy believe Medicare has been successful in providing access to care and stable coverage to the elderly and disabled individuals; however only a small percentage think the program has realized its potential to achieve other important goals, like using its leverage as the country's largest purchaser of services to control costs and promote a high performance health system.
October 23, 2009 - A new Commonwealth Fund report analyzes the similarities, differences, potential impacts, and costs of current bills passed by the five committees of jurisdiction in the United States Congress: Finance Committee and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committees in the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means, Education and Labor, and Energy and Commerce committees.
October 8, 2009 - The cost and quality of health care, as well as access to care and health outcomes, continue to vary widely among states, according to the Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System's second state scorecard report released today.
October 5, 2009 - The costs of universal coverage are partly offset by later savings in Medicare. New Commonwealth Fund-supported research found that individuals who lacked health insurance at some point between the ages of 51 and 64 cost Medicare more than those who had continuous coverage in the years prior to Medicare eligibility.
October 1, 2009 - As Congress and the Administration debate health care reform, it is instructive to look at the Massachusetts model, now in its third year. A study of workers in the Bay State who were interviewed in fall 2008 about their employer-sponsored health care coverage, following up on similar surveys in 2006 and 2007. Despite predictions that employers could reduce coverage or benefits under health reform, the results suggest the opposite, although premiums and out-of-pocket costs have increased for some employees in smaller companies. The study was cosponsored by The Commonwealth Fund and published in Health Affairs.
September 10, 2009 - Today, the Census Bureau released the latest data on the number of Americans without health insurance. The number of uninsured individuals rose from 45.7 million in 2007 to 46.3 million in 2008. This increase of 0.6 million would have been much worse without a growth in government-provided insurance of 4.4 million, including a 3.0 million increase in coverage under Medicaid.
September 9, 2009 - Small business owners and employees are among those who stand to benefit the most from provisions in some of the current health reform proposals under consideration by Congress, according to a Commonwealth Fund report.
August 26, 2009 - Over the last 30 years, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which assesses the costs of health reform and other legislation as it moves through Congress and is widely respected for its competence and integrity, has underestimated the amount of savings and overestimated the costs that major changes in the health care system would bring, says Jon Gabel in an op-ed published in today's New York Times.
August 20, 2009 - Nationally, family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance increased 119 percent between 1999 and 2008, and could increase another 94 percent to an average $23,842 per family by 2020 if cost growth continues on its current course, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
August 6, 2009 - Comprehensive health reform proposals now before Congress could help the more than 13 million uninsured young adults ages 19-29 gain coverage, and such reforms would also help ensure that those who now have coverage would not lose it, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
July 27, 2009 - By a wide margin, health care leaders believe that individuals should have a choice of public and private health plans, and strongly support other central components of health reform such as innovative provider payment reform and a national insurance health exchange with strong standard-setting authority.
July 21, 2009 - The individual health insurance market is not a viable option for the majority of uninsured adults, a new Commonwealth Fund report finds. Seventy-three percent of people who tried to buy insurance on their own in the last three years did not purchase a policy, primarily because premiums were too high.