October 23, 2009 - A new Commonwealth Fund report analyzes the similarities, differences, potential impacts, and costs of current bills passed by the five committees of jurisdiction in the United States Congress: Finance Committee and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committees in the Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means, Education and Labor, and Energy and Commerce committees.
October 5, 2009 - The costs of universal coverage are partly offset by later savings in Medicare. New Commonwealth Fund-supported research found that individuals who lacked health insurance at some point between the ages of 51 and 64 cost Medicare more than those who had continuous coverage in the years prior to Medicare eligibility.
October 1, 2009 - As Congress and the Administration debate health care reform, it is instructive to look at the Massachusetts model, now in its third year. A study of workers in the Bay State who were interviewed in fall 2008 about their employer-sponsored health care coverage, following up on similar surveys in 2006 and 2007. Despite predictions that employers could reduce coverage or benefits under health reform, the results suggest the opposite, although premiums and out-of-pocket costs have increased for some employees in smaller companies. The study was cosponsored by The Commonwealth Fund and published in Health Affairs.
September 10, 2009 - Today, the Census Bureau released the latest data on the number of Americans without health insurance. The number of uninsured individuals rose from 45.7 million in 2007 to 46.3 million in 2008. This increase of 0.6 million would have been much worse without a growth in government-provided insurance of 4.4 million, including a 3.0 million increase in coverage under Medicaid.
August 26, 2009 - Over the last 30 years, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which assesses the costs of health reform and other legislation as it moves through Congress and is widely respected for its competence and integrity, has underestimated the amount of savings and overestimated the costs that major changes in the health care system would bring, says Jon Gabel in an op-ed published in today's New York Times.
August 20, 2009 - Nationally, family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance increased 119 percent between 1999 and 2008, and could increase another 94 percent to an average $23,842 per family by 2020 if cost growth continues on its current course, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
August 6, 2009 - Comprehensive health reform proposals now before Congress could help the more than 13 million uninsured young adults ages 19-29 gain coverage, and such reforms would also help ensure that those who now have coverage would not lose it, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report.
July 21, 2009 - The individual health insurance market is not a viable option for the majority of uninsured adults, a new Commonwealth Fund report finds. Seventy-three percent of people who tried to buy insurance on their own in the last three years did not purchase a policy, primarily because premiums were too high.
July 16, 2009 - As lawmakers debate how to pay for an overhaul of the nation's health care system, a new report from The Commonwealth Fund projects that including both private and public insurance choices in a new insurance exchange would save the United States as much as $265 billion in administrative costs from 2010 to 2020. Congressional leaders are attempting to keep 10-year federal budget costs of health care reform legislation under $1 trillion.
June 24, 2009 - A comprehensive approach to health insurance, provider payment, and care delivery system reforms has the potential to slow health care cost increases while achieving near-universal coverage. The potential savings for families, businesses, and the federal government vary markedly, however, depending on whether or not a public insurance plan option is included and how such a plan is structured, according to a new analysis from The Commonwealth Fund.
June 11, 2009 - The Commonwealth Fund and Consumers Union will come together today for an event in Washington, D.C. to highlight the need for health reform that will provide security and stability for millions of people struggling to get the health care they need and describe how a patient-centered health care system would make a difference for them.
June 2, 2009 - The 161 million Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance are facing substantial increases in out-of-pocket (OOP) costs, according to a study published today on the Health Affairs Web site. URL here
The study, authored by researchers from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) and Watson Wyatt Worldwide and funded by The Commonwealth Fund, examines trends in the comprehensiveness of employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) from 2004 to 2007. It finds rising rates of underinsurance and unaffordability, particularly for poorer and sicker people.
May 28, 2009 - Even in the face of economic hard times, Massachusetts has sustained gains in insurance coverage and access to care stemming from its landmark 2006 health reform and coverage expansion. However, some of the early gains in reducing barriers to care and improving the affordability of care had eroded by the fall of 2008, roughly two years after the Bay State began implementing the legislation signed into law by Gov. Mitt Romney in April 2006.
May 20, 2009 - Physicians can and should play a leading role in achieving health care reform by working towards comprehensive reform of the way health care is paid for and delivered, helping achieve a guaranteed 1.5 percent annual savings in health care costs that would pay for covering all Americans, according to a New England Journal of Medicine Perspective piece published online today.
May 14, 2009 - As policymakers consider ways to cut health costs as a part of health reform, a new national survey of physician practices finds that physicians on average are spending the equivalent of three work weeks annually on administrative tasks required by health plans. According to the study by Lawrence P. Casalino, M.D., Ph.D., of Weill Cornell Medical College and colleagues, physician practices report that overall the costs of interacting with insurance plans is $31 billion annually and 6.9 percent of all U.S. expenditures for physician and clinical services. The study, published in today’s online issue of Health Affairs, was co-funded by The Commonwealth Fund and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO) Initiative.