In 1918, Anna Harkness founded the Commonwealth Fund with a gift of $10 million ($151 million today) and the mandate to “do something for the welfare of mankind.” To celebrate 100 years of our work to improve health care and make it affordable and accessible for all Americans, we’ve launched a website that tells the Commonwealth Fund’s story. To a large extent, it’s also the story of health care in the United States over the last century.

Visitors familiar only with the Commonwealth Fund of recent years may be surprised to learn of some of the foundation’s earlier efforts: supporting the research that led to widespread adoption of the Pap smear; building the rural hospitals that laid the foundation for the Hill-Burton Act; and helping to bring hospice care to the U.S. We invite you to explore the site.

President Donald Trump’s first year in office was one of the most frenetic and confusing periods in U.S. health care history. Beneath the apparent chaos, however, continuity ruled, Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D., says on To the Point.

Congress is considering bipartisan legislation that could make lower-priced generic drugs available more quickly. In a post on To the Point, former congressman Henry Waxman and colleagues explain that the CREATES Act, to be included in an upcoming bill to fund the federal government, tackles one of the key drivers of high drug prices — drug manufacturers’ use of anticompetitive tactics to block access to generic medications. 

The Trump administration has proposed allowing individuals and small employers to more easily purchase health insurance across state lines through association health plans, which have a history of fraud and insolvency. It is also expected to reverse federal limitations on short-term insurance, which does not have to comply with Affordable Care Act market rules like preexisting condition protections. In two To the Point posts, Georgetown University researchers explain that, in the wake of these changes, states need to take steps to protect consumers and health insurance markets while federal regulators need to clarify states’ authority to regulate association plans. 

In a new Commonwealth Fund report, Medicaid policy expert Deborah Bachrach and colleagues detail six practical strategies for supporting the capacity of Medicaid plans and their network providers to address social issues such as housing or poor nutrition. For example, the report explores how states can classify selected social services as covered Medicaid benefits; use value-based payments to support provider investment in effective interventions; and financially reward Medicaid plans that are responsive to clients’ social needs.

Earlier this month, Kentucky became the first state to gain approval to launch a demonstration that will make employment an eligibility requirement for Medicaid. Shortly after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) gave the green light to the state's proposal, attorneys representing 15 Kentucky Medicaid beneficiaries sued the HHS secretary, seeking to have the Trump administration's work policies declared unlawful. On To the Point, Sara Rosenbaum of George Washington University and colleagues examine the heart of the case: that the demonstration may exceed the HHS secretary’s power under Section 1115, because it runs counter to Medicaid's mission to promote access to medical assistance among the nation’s neediest populations. 

Medicare covers a lot of health services, but not routine dental, vision, or hearing care. That helps explain why 75 percent of Medicare beneficiaries who need a hearing aid don’t have one, and why 70 percent of those who have trouble eating because of problems with their teeth haven’t gone to the dentist in the past year. According to experts Amber Willink, Cathy Schoen, and Karen Davis, Medicare could offer a voluntary, supplemental benefit that provides basic coverage of these important preventive services at a reasonable cost.

Starting in 2014, Maryland’s acute-care hospitals have been paid under a global budgeting system. According to a Commonwealth Fund–supported study in JAMA Internal Medicine, while hospitals have met the budget, there has been no appreciable reduction in use of services — such as number of hospital stays, emergency department visits, and primary care visits — when compared with control counties outside the state. University of Pittsburgh health economist Eric T. Roberts and his colleagues explore why. 

In Chiquita Turner’s South Los Angeles neighborhood, she’s reluctant to walk her son and niece to the local park because she feels unsafe. In our series Listening to Low-Income Patients, the Commonwealth Fund’s Shanoor Seervai looks at how the crime, gang violence, prostitution, and drugs that mark many low-income communities can have far-reaching effects on residents’ health. 

This month, the North Carolina Institute of Medicine launched the Legislative Health Policy Fellows Program to provide General Assembly members with resources and data to inform health policy decision-making. The program, which will support 22 fellowships this year, is funded in part by the Commonwealth Fund.

Our case study of how western Kentucky leveraged Medicaid expansion to increase access to care describes the state’s recently approved Medicaid waiver demonstration, which will require certain beneficiaries to work, attend school, or perform community services to keep their benefits. 

The short-term spending bill that Congress passed in January delayed the Affordable Care Act's taxes on the health care industry. Read more about the “Cadillac tax” on high-cost health plans in our 2016 report.