If Congress creates a new national insurance exchange as part of health reform legislation, should a public plan be included as one of the options? That is the subject Jacob Hacker, Len Nichols, and Stuart Butler explored in a recent Health Affairs Blog roundtable. The full roundtable is posted here, and some of the highlights of the [...]

Editor’s Note: If Congress creates a new national insurance exchange as part of comprehensive health reform, should a public plan be offered as one of the choices for consumers? That contentious question was the subject of a Health Affairs Blog Roundtable including Stuart Butler, vice president, domestic and economic policy studies, at the Heritage Foundation; [...]

Last year Congress passed legislation prohibiting group health plans that provide mental health coverage from imposing stricter limits on mental health treatment than for other medical or surgical care. This marked a historical milestone for mental health care, burying the unscientific distinction between “mental” and “physical” illness. But although progress has been made in mental [...]

On Thursday, May 7, please join Health Affairs and the SCAN Foundation for “Long Term Care In America: The Agenda For Health Reform.” Expanding access to the uninsured and restraining the rate of health cost growth are critical objectives of health reform. But given the disability and long-term care challenges facing the nation, these, too, [...]

Editor’s Note: The author of this post, Merton Bernstein, would like to thank Dr. Christina Daw for her research assistance.
Science does not permit ideology to foreclose inquiry; it requires facing facts and following where they and logic lead. Hence many cheered when President Barack Obama announced that science is back, that predisposition will no longer be permitted [...]

Editor’s Note: Health Affairs is proud to be a media partner for the Health 2.0 Meets Ix conference, which will take place April 22 and 23 in Boston, Massachusetts. As part of the lead-up to the conference, which will focus on the interplay between the Health 2.0 and information therapy (Ix) movements, Health Affairs Blog [...]

Over the past few years, policymakers, practitioners, and scholars have proposed several reforms to the health care system. These have included, among others, a systems focus, an engineering focus, and a collaborative focus. What these reports share in common is the recognized need for changes in the payment system to accompany changes in the delivery [...]

Editor’s Note: Health Affairs is proud to be a media partner for the Health 2.0 Meets Ix conference, which will take place April 22 and 23 in Boston, Massachusetts. As part of the lead-up to the conference, which will focus on the interplay between the Health 2.0 and information therapy (Ix) movements, Health Affairs Blog [...]

A public-private alliance known as the Commercial Aviation Safety Team (CAST) has greatly improved aviation safety. A similar alliance among health care stakeholders could reduce medication and device errors and wrong-site surgeries, renowned patient safety expert Peter Pronovost and coauthors say in an article published April 7 on the Health Affairs Web site. Pronovost is a [...]

Since the release of the president’s budget in February, the national health reform policy process has entered its “underground” phase. While we wait for details to emerge from secret meetings on Capitol Hill, the president’s financing plan for health reform is in increasing difficulty.
We should take President Obama at his word that he is deadly [...]

Editor’s Note: Health Affairs is proud to be a media partner for the Health 2.0 Meets Ix conference, which will take place April 22 and 23 in Boston, Massachusetts. As part of the lead-up to the conference, which will focus on the interplay between the Health 2.0 and information therapy (Ix) movements, Health Affairs Blog [...]

Editor’s Note: Health Affairs is proud to be a media partner for the Health 2.0 Meets Ix conference, which will take place April 22 and 23 in Boston, Massachusetts. As part of the lead-up to the conference, which will focus on the interplay between the Health 2.0 and information therapy (Ix) movements, Health Affairs Blog and [...]

Health IT has a heavy showing in this month’s most-read posts on Health Affairs Blog. Physician Caroline Poplin’s questioning of the medical home model, posted in late March, is generating debate. And a post from last May on Indiana’s health reform effort still makes the top 10 — and that’s no April Fool.

The Attack On [...]