Late Monday, the 12 members of the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (aka the “Super Committee”) announced their failure to agree to a debt-reduction package. How should consumer health advocates react to the news?
A Plague on Only One of Your
The awaited day is here. The Supreme Court announced that it will hear the case against the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual responsibility requirement (and other related requests). For those immersed in football season, this is the Super Bowl of le
Last week, Community Catalyst submitted comments to HHS about the Basic Health Program (BHP) option in the Affordable Care Act (ACA.) While there are many reasons to be enthusiastic about BHP, its potential to dramatically lower health care costs for some
Kaiser Family Foundation released a report last week, detailing results from a 50-state survey of Medicaid budgets. Kaiser’s results tell a classic story known as The Life and Times of a Countercyclical Program. Those of us who work in Medicaid policy hav
You know that expression, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me”? Well, it came to mind this past week at the National Association of Insurance Commissioner’s (NAIC) fall meeting in Washington, DC. Just as in March, during the NAIC’s spr
File Under: “…and don’t let the door hit you on the way out”
Recently, two Florida insurers announced their intention to quit the non-group health insurance market in that state. The state of Florida is trying to use the exit to bolster its case for a wai
As the Institute of Medicine (IOM) unveiled its report on Essential Health Benefits (EHB) on Friday, there were few surprises. The panel delivered a high level outline for selecting benefits with a strong recommendation that cost consciousness be its gui
In the United States, childhood obesity is an epidemic. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that 17 percent of children between ages 2 to 19 are obese. CDC data also show that since 1980 the prevalence of obesity among
Oral health advocates are trained to reinforce that oral health is essential to overall health. The good news is that a poll released today by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (conducted by Lake Research) found that 79 percent of survey respondents say that
