Health Affairs

Now that the Obama Administration has suspended implementation of the CLASS Act, what long-term care financing system should take its place? That is the question that Gloria Eldridge and Joanne Lynn address in the most-read Health Affairs Blog post for November. The November most-read list also features posts about reducing health care spending. For example,... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: A newly updated Health Policy Brief from Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation provides more information on the CLASS Act and where we stand now regarding the need to provide affordable coverage for long-term services and supports. The announcement by U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that the Community... Read the rest of this entry »

Flu vaccination rates among nursing home residents have improved slightly, particularly for blacks. Nonetheless, overall vaccination rates remain well below the 90 percent target for high-quality care, and black nursing home residents remain less likely to be vaccinated than whites, say Shubing Cai of Brown University and coauthors in the October issue of Health Affairs. The article... Read the rest of this entry »

As has been widely reported, the Department of Health and Human Services announced on Friday that they would stop implementing the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program the long-term care program included in the Affordable Care Act. “For 19 months, experts inside and outside of government have examined how HHS might implement a... Read the rest of this entry »

When making health care choices, is there a relationship between what health care consumers pay and the quality of services they receive? While this has been long debated, a soon-to-be published survey commissioned this year by the California HealthCare Foundation (CHCF) found uncertainty about the relationship between the cost and quality of care. The survey... Read the rest of this entry »

A posting on the Health Affairs blog earlier this year by Carol Levine asked the pointed question: “The year of the family caregiver- in what country?”  In it, she compared the “Year of the Family Caregiver” in the U.S. to the recent elections in Canada, where politicians were competing to see who could provide a... Read the rest of this entry »

The “Bipartisan Plan to Reduce our Nation’s Deficits” developed by the “Gang of Six (or Seven)”, a group of Senators from both parties, certainly is not something I would brag about before a group of Princeton students who, I routinely tell them, will have to grow up quickly to clean up the mess their parents... Read the rest of this entry »

As has been widely reported, the bipartisan group of Senators known as the “Gang of Six” today unveiled a long awaited framework to reduce the nation’s projected debt by $3.7 trillion over ten years. The plan presented by the group — which includes Democrats Conrad (ND), Durbin (IL), and Warner (VA) and Republicans Chambliss (GA),... Read the rest of this entry »

The latest Health Policy Brief from Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation examines the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Plan, a voluntary, publicly administered insurance program enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. It is designed to help people should they become disabled and need long-term services and... Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Ogg’s Narrative Matters essay in the January issue of Health Affairs “powerfully illustrates the realities of the current long-term care environment,” Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) said yesterday at a House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing.  Pallone, the panel’s senior Democrat, entered the essay into the hearing record. Ogg suffers from primary progressive multiple... Read the rest of this entry »

Health Affairs has launched The Care Span, a new ongoing section of the journal, in its March 2011 edition. The Care Span will examine the topics of aging and disability, not as isolated experiences but as part of the full span of life. Toward this end, the journal aims to bring together the best current... Read the rest of this entry »

Major changes lie ahead in the structure and delivery of long-term health care services and supports, accelerated by the Affordable Care Act. Among these are expanded options for people to receive services in their homes and communities; care coordination for the disabled population dually enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid; and the creation of a new... Read the rest of this entry »

On Tuesday morning, March 8, please join Health Affairs at the W Hotel Washington for a briefing tied to the release of the March 2011 issue of the journal, “Profiles of Innovation in Health Care Delivery.” You can also follow the briefing on Twitter through live Tweets at #HA_Innovation on HA_Events.  Topics covered in the issue... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: See this subsequent post for an updated speakers list and information on following the event through Twitter. On March 8, 2011, please join Health Affairs for a briefing tied to the release of the March 2011 issue of the journal, “Profiles of Innovation in Health Care Delivery.”  Topics covered in the issue and... Read the rest of this entry »

In a speech last week at the Kaiser Family Foundation, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that the Administration was looking at ways to buttress the financing of a new long-term care insurance program included in the Affordable Care Act. This comes in response to concerns raised by President Obama’s National Commission on... Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s Note: For more on informal caregivers and related issues, see Bridging Troubled Waters: Family Caregivers, Transitions, And Long-Term Care and other articles in the January issue of Health Affairs, titled Advancing Long-Term Services & Supports.  The primary focus of this analysis is to examine trends and key findings for caregivers of persons 50+, with an... Read the rest of this entry »

Here in DC we’re bracing for the storm of the century — snow storm, that is.  What better time to catch up on some health policy reading? We list here the top 10 most-read posts from January on Health Affairs Blog. Topics cover health reform, health care costs, the mammography guidelines controversy, and more. And... Read the rest of this entry »

Congress is now debating whether to include in health reform a new program to help people pay for long-term care services and supports. At this propitious time, leading experts explore critical policy issues related to long-term care in a series of articles in the January 2010 edition of Health Affairs. (As of this issue, Health... Read the rest of this entry »

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,... Read the rest of this entry »