India and China have undergone major economic transformations in the past quarter-century – and each now has a middle class that is bigger than the entire U.S. population. Their health care systems have improved but are still facing fundamental challenges. As a result, both countries now stand on the brink of major health reforms. At [...]

For the second time in as many weeks, a respected research organization has reported sharp increases in reported difficulties with access to care for insured as well as uninsured patients. Earlier this month, in a study on underinsurance widely reported by national media, Cathy Schoen and colleagues at the Commonwealth Fund found that the share [...]

Today’s edition of the Health Wonk Review features a post on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s economic assessment of health care presented at last week’s Senate Finance Committee Health Reform Summit. While rising U.S. health care costs pose a strain on the economy, there are positive aspects of new health care technology, says Bernanke:
“Although the high cost of health [...]

Covering low-income people through public programs such as Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, rather than through private health insurance, results in lower per-person medical spending and considerably lower out-of-pocket expenses for consumers. That’s the conclusion of a new study published today on the Health Affairs Web site.

Editor’s Note: In an interview published this week, Health Affairs Contributing Editor Barbara Culliton asks Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Associate Commissioner For Science, Norris Alderson, about his agency’s regulation of nanomedicine and the potential for health care cost savings. Here’s an excerpt of their conversation:
Barbara Culliton: Nanomedicine is the “next big thing” in medicine, [...]

As health coverage expansion and its attendant costs are debated on the campaign trail and in Congress and state legislatures, two recent Health Affairs articles dealing with coverage issues – one on the rising number of “underinsured” Americans and the second on the state of the landmark Massachusetts reforms after their first year – have [...]

Health wonk week in Washington began this past Sunday with thousands of health services researchers descending on the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel for the annual research meeting of AcademyHealth. The organization started 25 years ago as the Association for Health Services Research under the late Alice Hersh, who believed health policymaking in Washington should be informed [...]

It is no great stretch to allow that “consumers” may have an important role to play in health economics. After all, it was a market response by premium payers that forced the insurance industry to back away from tightly managed care in the late 1990s. Nor is the idea of patient-centered care merely an idealistic [...]

A post on minority health legislation by Dora Hughes, health adviser to the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, was among the most-read Health Affairs Blog posts for April and May 2008. Discussion of health reform also ranked highly, with posts on what’s happening in Indiana, a roundtable on reform and the 2008 election, and more. Sign up for [...]

The Global Health Council’s 35th Annual International Conference on Global Health, which ran from May 27 to May 31, 2008, featured the theme of Community Health: Delivering, Serving, Engaging, and Leading. The conference attracted more than 2,500 people representing NGOs, businesses, faith-based organizations, academic institutions, multilateral organizations, governments, and students from many different countries. Conference [...]

Editor’s Note: Today, The Health Affairs Blog concludes a series of four posts on trends in performance measurement and performance-based payment in health care. The series focuses particularly on the increasing emphasis being placed on measuring and rewarding cost-efficiency. Arnold Milstein (below) and Howard Beckman contribute posts today. Last Thursday, James Robinson and Tom Williams weighed in.
Using the estimation methods published [...]

Editor’s Note: Today, The Health Affairs Blog concludes a series of four posts on trends in performance measurement and performance-based payment in health care. The series focuses particularly on the increasing emphasis being placed on measuring and rewarding cost-efficiency. Howard Beckman (below) and Arnold Milstein contribute posts today. Last Thursday, James Robinson and Tom Williams weighed in. See [...]

From its inception, the Medicare Modernization Act has simmered with the contradictions implicit in its mixed parentage. It is at once the most ambitious new U.S. human welfare program of the millenium; and at the same time a great ragbag of absurdities, from the loopy benefit structure to a wilderness of obscure and convoluted arrangements [...]