Health Affairs

Editor’s note: See another Health Affairs post on this topic by Tim Jost. How do you shop for health insurance today? For many of us, our employer makes the decision for us. And if there is a choice of health plans, the employer also provides helpful summaries of the benefits, premium differences, and cost-sharing so [...]

Editor’s note: Another Health Affairs Blog post, by Mila Kofman and Sabrina Corlette, also discusses the February 9 final rule implementing Affordable Care Act (ACA) requirements that health plans provide consumers with short, easy to understand summaries of benefits and coverage. Tim Jost’s post below discusses this new rule; additionally, it has also been updated [...]

The Affordable Care Act’s state health insurance exchanges for small businesses present a host of opportunities for states now creating them, but they also present design and regulatory challenges that could make or break the success of the program, according to a cluster of articles in the February issue of Health Affairs, released yesterday. The [...]

Despite wide institutional acceptance of a medical professionalism charter that endorses openness and honesty in physicians’ interactions with patients, not all doctors comply, according to a survey whose results are published in the February 2012 issue of Health Affairs, released today. Although about two-thirds of doctors responding to the survey did agree that they should [...]

Briefs continue to be filed at a furious pace in the Affordable Care Act Supreme Court litigation.  On January 6, the federal government led off with its brief challenging the decision of the Eleventh Circuit federal court of appeals that the ACA’s minimum coverage requirement (individual mandate) is unconstitutional.  The states and the National Federation [...]

A belated tip of the hat to two Health Affairs articles included in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s five most influential research articles by RWJF grantees in 2011: Evidence Links Increases In Public Health Spending To Declines In Preventable Deaths, by Glenn Mays and Sharla Smith; and Nurses’ Widespread Job Dissatisfaction, Burnout, And Frustration With [...]

As we embark upon a presidential campaign season, we can anticipate many lively debates on the topics of taxation and spending in this nation.  As health spending in the Unites States accounts for 18 percent of our gross domestic product – a rate often called unsustainable – it is critical that we be clear-eyed in [...]

At the Colorado Health Care Insider, Louise Norris hosts the latest edition of the Health Wonk Review. Louise includes Sharon Long’s Health Affairs Blog post clarifying the facts about health reform in Massachusetts. Check out Sharon’s post and all the great posts in Louise’s Wonk Review.

Americans increasingly distrust what they perceive as poorly run and conflicted government. Yet rarely can we see far enough inside the federal apparatus to examine what works and what doesn’t, or to inspect how good and bad decisions come to pass. Comparing the behaviors of two influential federal advisory bodies provides valuable lessons about how [...]

In April 2012 a number of accountable care organizations (ACOs) will begin their contracts with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) under Medicare’s Shared Savings and Pioneer ACO programs. The latest health policy brief from Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provides an overview of ACOs, their origins, and the current [...]

Last Thursday’s Republican Presidential Debate in Florida included a lively, but not always accurate, exchange on health reform in Massachusetts.  In particular, Senator Santorum reported that one in four Massachusetts residents were going without needed care because of high costs; he also implied that the share of residents choosing to pay the fine for failing [...]

Massachusetts’s health reform bill, which provided the template for the federal Affordable Care Act, went into effect in 2006. In a statewide survey taken in 2010, 94.2 percent of the state’s nonelderly (19–64) residents reported being covered, a significant increase over the 86.6 percent estimate of 2006. The survey is reported in a Health Affairs [...]

Video of the release event for the January issue of Health Affairs, “Confronting The Growing Diabetes Crisis,” is now available on the Health Affairs Web site.

WHAT:      More than 1,000 health care leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, government officials and others will join the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Health Affairs, the West Wireless Health Institute and keynote speaker Dr. Atul Gawande, at the Care Innovations Summit. WHO:       Marilyn Tavenner, Acting Administrator, [...]

At a recent symposium concerning both saving money and improving patient care, Health Affairs Editor-in Chief Susan Dentzer stated, “It is well established now that one can in fact improve the quality of health care and reduce the costs at the same time.”  This is exactly the principle behind the growing movement toward patient-centered care.  [...]

Editor’s Note: The January 2012 issue of Health Affairs is a thematic volume titled “Confronting The Growing Diabetes Crisis.” Ariella was a different child, thin and shy, when I first met her about a year and a half ago, just after her 6th birthday. Her mother had noted her thirst and hunger, and, despite this [...]

At Workers’ Comp Insider, Julie Ferguson hosts the latest edition of the Health Wonk Review. Despite Julie’s observation that January is “beer month,” there are no indications that she was anything but sober in writing eloquently about some of the most interesting health policy blogging of the last couple of weeks. Julie graciously includes Tim [...]

Most Americans struggle to understand health information and navigate the health care system, which can lead to preventable hospitalizations, greater use of emergency care, and reduced overall health status. To avoid costly “crisis care,” both health professionals and organizations must consider Americans’ health literacy skills—that is, their capacity to obtain, communicate, process, and understand basic [...]

On January 10th, the states filed their latest arguments in their bid to have the ACA’s Medicaid expansion declared an unconstitutional coercion.  Following an effort to piece together a coercion doctrine from dicta found in a handful of Supreme Court cases, the states assert that the “[t]he ACA is Premised on the Understanding that It [...]

In June of 2011, I flew to Washington, D.C. to say good-bye to my friend, Alvin.  I wanted to be there with him and his family during his peaceful passage from this life.  Unfortunately, his end was not peaceful.  It was a nightmare because he, like too many patients being transferred from one level of [...]