September 12, 2012 - New data released by the U.S. Census Bureau show that the number of people without health insurance declined by 1.3 million in 2011, falling to 48.6 million people. This blog post looks at what contributed to the largest one-year drop in a decade.
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October 21, 2011 - The highly anticipated final regulations for accountable care organizations (ACOs) were recently released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In this post, the Fund's Mark Zezza and Stuart Guterman outline the key changes to the regulations.
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January 31, 2012 - Vulnerable populations have more difficulty obtaining health care, receive worse care, and experience poorer health outcomes than other groups. This blog post looks at the new Vulnerable Populations program, which aims to help achieve equity in the U.S. health system.
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July 13, 2011 - Given persistent budgetary pressures, it's not surprising that the Administration and Congress are weighing options for achieving savings in the Medicare and Medicaid programs, say the Fund's Karen Davis and Stu Guterman. It's important, however, to bear three points in mind.
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April 12, 2012 - The goals of accountable care—supporting providers' efforts to work together to achieve better care, better health, and lower costs—are compelling. But translating principles into practice requires learning. Elliott Fisher and Stephen Shortell explore the challenges in learning from ACOs' early experiences.
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March 27, 2013 - Many state Medicaid agencies are using the Medicare Shared Savings Program established under the Affordable Care Act a model for their shared saving arrangements.
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August 15, 2012 - The health professionals who care for people with Medicaid coverage are struggling to deliver high-quality, efficient care to their most vulnerable patients. This post highlights several states that are developing accountable care organizations (ACOs) for their Medicaid populations to both improve care and control costs.
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October 19, 2010 - From 2007 to 2009, the four largest insurers in the individual market denied coverage to about one of every seven applicants on the basis of a preexisting condition. While the health reform law's ban on denying coverage because of preexisting conditions does not go into effect until 2014, Jean Hall outlines other provisions of the Affordable Care Act that bridge that coverage gap.
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February 21, 2013 - All states have committed to what kind of health insurance marketplace, also referred to as an exchange, they want in their states starting in January 2014.
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September 03, 2010 - Small businesses—which have historically struggled more than large companies to provide adequate health insurance to their employees—will be one of the first groups to benefit from the Affordable Care Act (ACA), in the form of tax credits designed to offset health insurance premium costs. These credits are an important step toward helping all Americans obtain comprehensive health insurance coverage.
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December 12, 2011 - At the December 2 Alliance for Health Reform briefing, "Inside Deficit Reduction: What Now?," a panel of experts with diverse perspectives discussed the potential impact on health policy of the failure of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction to reach agreement on a plan to reduce the federal deficit.
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January 16, 2012 - To examine how safety-net health systems might participate in ACOs and other innovative payment and delivery system reforms, the National Academy for State Health Policy interviewed several key stakeholders about what is needed to promote ACOs in the safety net.
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January 07, 2011 - The Commonwealth Fund recently cosponsored with AARP and Women in Government the third installment in the webinar series on realizing health reform's potential. This webinar focused on the unique problems facing baby boomers, and how the Affordable Care Act will help ensure that this group has access to affordable and comprehensive insurance.
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January 28, 2011 - This post looks at recent deficit reduction proposals as they relate to health care, finding that the proposals' focus on reining in federal spending, rather than health spending overall, could simply shift costs from the federal government to state and local governments, businesses, and families.
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January 18, 2012 - Health care spending in 2009 and 2010 grew at the slowest rates in 50 years. This startling news was largely attributed to the shrinking economy. In a new blog post, Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis suggests that lower longer-term projections point to a shift in the health system.
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