Editor’s Note: In the post below, Tim Jost takes a first look at the Senate Democratic health reform legislation. In a second post, Jost provides a detailed look at several issues that arise under the bill’s insurance reforms. In a third post, Jost looks at how the bill treats abortion coverage and also at the [...]

HR 3962, the Affordable Health Care for Americans Act, hit the House floor with a thud Thursday morning at 1990 pages, almost double the size of the bill we last saw before the Energy and Commerce hearings at the end of July.  The bill incorporates, of course, amendments from the House jurisdictional committees, but also [...]

Two papers, released today by Health Affairs, provide a “reality check” about some of those living with chronic conditions who lack health insurance.
• Uninsured Adults With Chronic Conditions Or Disabilities: Gaps In Public Insurance Programs
By Steven D. Pizer, Austin B. Frakt, and Lisa I. Iezzoni
Who are the uninsured? Where do they live? To answer those [...]

The complex health care overhaul underway in Congress would require nearly all Americans to have health insurance – a provision known as “individual responsibility” or an “individual mandate.” Supporters warn other reforms are not possible without this requirement.  But many opponents say such a mandate is unaffordable, and unacceptable in a free society. 
A new Health [...]

Truth is not only the first casualty of war, it is also the first casualty of serious public policy debate.
Last year, a report by Families USA made the astounding claim that 6 people die every day in Florida because they are uninsured. Seven die every day in Texas, 8 in California, and 25 in New [...]

On the heels of the President’s speech on health care reform, the Census Bureau released to little fanfare new estimates of health insurance coverage from the Current Population Survey (CPS).   Between 2007 and 2008, the number of individuals without health insurance rose from 45.7 million to 46.3 million, increasing the ranks of the uninsured by [...]

Widely cited estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau likely overstate the number of uninsured people and understate the number of people with Medicaid coverage because of an inability of people to recall their insurance status accurately from the previous year, according to a study published yesterday on the Health Affairs Web site.
The CPS, administered in February, [...]

For decades, the United States and other nations have sought to tame the long-term growth of health spending.  Even as resources devoted to health care grow, they remain poorly distributed, and much of the health care purchased is of questionable value.  As the Obama Administration and Congress tackle health reform, expanding health coverage to millions [...]

Imagine the following. You are the senior White House health policy adviser, and you’ve been told to brief the president and his cabinet officials about the number of Americans who lack health insurance. The president turns to you, and you say: “Mr. President. The government has four different national surveys that count the uninsured. Unfortunately, [...]

The traditional summer break that provides members of Congress a respite from their official duties instead, in some areas, turned into a raucous, sometimes angry series of town hall meetings focused on the ambitious health care reform proposals of Democrats. The meetings have given reform opponents and advocates an opportunity to voice their opinions, although [...]

For those of us who have made Medicaid the focus of our work, it never ceases to amaze us as we watch the great health care debate unfold how frequently we find ourselves saying, “Medicaid can do that.” Or, even more often, “Medicaid is doing that.”
These are heady times for big concepts for transforming health [...]

Editor’s Note: Below is the transcript of a Health Affairs Blog Roundtable on Atul Gawande’s New Yorker article on McAllen, Texas, and variations in health care costs. The roundtable used the article as a jumping-off point for a wide-ranging discussion on the policy implications of cost variations, delivery system reform, and other topics. Participants included Robert [...]

Editor’s Note: In the post below, Amitabh Chandra responds to criticisms of the Dartmouth Atlas and offers his vision of the lessons of the Dartmouth findings on variations in health care costs and practice styles. Watch the Blog tomorrow for a roundtable discussion on Atul Gawande’s New Yorker article on McAllen Texas and the policy [...]

Despite economic hard times, Massachusetts still shows gains in insurance coverage and access to care as a result of its 2006 state health reform. However, some of the early gains in reducing barriers to health care and improving affordability had eroded by the fall of 2008, according to Urban Institute researchers in a new study published last week on the [...]

The number of uninsured Americans is projected to increase by at least 6.9 million by 2010 — meaning 19.2 percent of nonelderly Americans would be uninsured. This is an increase of 2.0 percentage points from 2007, say Todd Gilmer and Richard Kronick of the University of California, San Diego, in a paper published May 28 on the [...]

Plummeting coverage and soaring costs characterize the nation’s health insurance crisis. With much coverage for the nonelderly based on employment, job loss contributes to this misfortune. In response, Congress seems headed to emulate the 2006 Massachusetts “reform.” That’s an unpromising prescription because it seriously increases costs — just the opposite of what President Barack Obama [...]

The recent confusion surrounding the health care industry’s statement about reducing the growth in health care costs by 1.5 percentage points annually — it is a goal, the industry clarified, not a year-by-year target — underscores the need to put mechanisms in place to ensure that the industry’s spending growth target is met. Nonetheless, I [...]

As the first H1N1 or so-called swine flu cases were diagnosed in Mexico, health officials all over the United States leapt into action. This is the test that they have been preparing for.
As the disease spread, public health professionals have been actively tracking the cases, working around the clock to analyze lab specimens, offering treatment to [...]

Here is a paper with as many as 100 references that you almost never see cited in Health Affairs, or in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), or in the New England Journal of Medicine (at least not in their public policy articles). In fact, if you are a regular reader of these publications, [...]

President Barack Obama opened his speech to Congress on February 24 calling for our nation to take responsibility for its future once again and finally face our long-term challenges, including our structural fiscal imbalances. He was clear that we will no longer ignore the challenge to reform our struggling health care system, nor will we [...]