Opinion Leaders Evaluate Medicaid
<p>As states struggle with mounting Medicaid budgets and growing need for the program's services, the overwhelming majority of respondents to the latest Commonwealth Fund <a href="/cnlib/pub/enews_clickthrough.htm?enews_item_id=18926&return_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecmwf%2Eorg%2Fsurveys%2Fsurveys%5Fshow%2Ehtm%3Fdoc%5Fid%3D300546%26%23doc300546">Health Care Opinion Leaders Survey</a> agree that Medicaid is critical to improving access to health care for low-income populations.<br><br>About 95 percent of respondents favor policies to simplify eligibility and reenrollment rules to improve continuity of coverage. And 85 percent favor federal funding to expand coverage to all uninsured below 150 percent of the poverty level. Majorities of respondents also endorse proposals to improve and expand coverage under the program, such as pay-for-performance to improve quality of care, requiring employers who don't offer health insurance to support Medicaid or the State Children's Health Insurance Program, and allowing anyone to buy in to these programs with a sliding scale premium.<br><Br>The Fund's opinion leaders panel includes experts in health care delivery, academia and research, and insurance and other health industries, as well as representatives from government agencies and advocacy organizations.<br><br>In her accompanying <a href="/cnlib/pub/enews_clickthrough.htm?enews_item_id=18928&return_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecmwf%2Eorg%2Faboutus%2Faboutus%5Fshow%2Ehtm%3Fdoc%5Fid%3D295981%26%23doc295981">"From the President"</a> column, Fund president Karen Davis, writes that "Medicaid needs to evolve in order to meet it goals." Related commentaries from <a href="/cnlib/pub/enews_clickthrough.htm?enews_item_id=18927&return_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecmwf%2Eorg%2Fpublications%2Fpublications%5Fshow%2Ehtm%3Fdoc%5Fid%3D300308%26%23doc300308">Diane Rowland, Sc.D.,</a> executive vice president of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation; <a href="/cnlib/pub/enews_clickthrough.htm?enews_item_id=18925&return_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecmwf%2Eorg%2Fpublications%2Fpublications%5Fshow%2Ehtm%3Fdoc%5Fid%3D301386%26%23doc301386">Raymond C. Scheppach, Ph.D.,</a> executive director of the National Governors Association; and <a href="/cnlib/pub/enews_clickthrough.htm?enews_item_id=18929&return_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Ecmwf%2Eorg%2Fpublications%2Fpublications%5Fshow%2Ehtm%3Fdoc%5Fid%3D302696%26%23doc302696">Sandra Shewry, M.P.H., M.S.W.,</a> director of California's State Department of Health Services, offer practical Medicaid reform strategies.<br><br>To further discussion of Medicaid's achievements and future directions, we invite you to take the <a href="http://64.73.28.22/s.asp?u=547111363942">Opinion Leaders survey</a> yourself. You can also view the results of our <a href="/surveys/surveys.htm">earlier surveys.</a></p>
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/newsletters/ealerts/2005/oct/opinion-leaders-evaluate-medicaid