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Health Care Reform

Health Insurance Cost Sharing
commentary
Medicare for All: Sounds Good, but What Does It Mean?
David Anderson, Jodi L. Liu @jodilliu, Mark W. Friedberg
Nov 19, 2018
Health Affairs Blog
Traditional Medicare is popular and therefore can lend a good brand name to coverage expansion proposals, but its limits can be significant for some patients. Those proposing and evaluating “Medicare for All” proposals should consider whether and how these limits are addressed.
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Health Insurance Mandates
commentary
Understanding the Impact of the Elimination of the Individual Mandate Penalty
Christine Eibner @Chrissyeibner, Sarah A. Nowak
Aug 10, 2018
The Commonwealth Fund Blog
Starting in 2019, the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate penalty will be eliminated, effectively ending the law's requirement that most people have health insurance. While declines in coverage and increases in premiums are likely, the magnitudes of these effects are highly uncertain.
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Health Care Payment Approaches
commentary
Potential Benefits for Most New Yorkers but No Free Lunch: Tough Decisions for Single-Payer Health Care in New York
Jodi L. Liu @jodilliu
Aug 6, 2018
New York Daily News
A single-payer plan in New York would shift health care spending to the state instead of private insurers. As with any far-reaching legislation, there are trade-offs. It's important that policymakers consider the impact of the single-payer plan in totality.
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Health Care Reform
blog
Beyond the Headlines: RAND's Christine Eibner Discusses Health Care Reform
Oct 27, 2017
The issue of how to improve health care in the United States is complicated. At a RAND event, senior economist and Paul O'Neill Alcoa Chair in Policy Analysis Christine Eibner discussed modifications to the Affordable Care Act and the long-term outlook for health care reform.
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Health Care Payment Approaches
commentary
Savings from a Single-Payer Health System Would Not Be Automatic
Jodi L. Liu @jodilliu
Sep 26, 2017
The Hill
Polls have shown increasing public support for a single-payer system in the United States. Yet there is no agreement on how to set up and pay for a single-payer system or even how much it would cost.
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Health Care Reform
commentary
Do Americans Expect Too Much from Health Insurance?
Christine Eibner @Chrissyeibner, Katherine Grace Carman @KGCarman
Sep 23, 2017
U.S. News & World Report
Americans expect affordable coverage for pre-existing conditions, access to routine services, and protection from unpredictable and significant financial risk from accidents or illness. As a product designed primarily for risk protection, insurance may not be the most efficient or affordable approach to achieving all of these objectives.
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United States
blog
RAND's Summer Reading List for Congress
Aug 4, 2017
Hill staffers can make the most of the Congressional recess with this list of must-read research and commentary on the policy issues they will be addressing this fall.
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Economic Burden of Health Care
commentary
Extending Marketplace Tax Credits Would Make Coverage More Affordable for Middle-Income Adults
Jodi L. Liu @jodilliu, Christine Eibner @Chrissyeibner
Jul 27, 2017
The Commonwealth Fund Blog
Paying for health care coverage is a challenge for Americans facing rising premiums, deductibles, and copayments. The ACA's tax credits that make marketplace insurance more affordable for lower-income individuals should be extended to middle-income adults aged 50–64.
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Health Care Reform
commentary
Ingredients for Health Care Reform
Christine Eibner @Chrissyeibner
Jul 10, 2017
Fortune
Despite their differences, the Affordable Care Act and the current proposals to replace it take a similar approach to providing health insurance. What might some alternatives look like? And how could they provide coverage to more Americans?
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Affordable Care Act
commentary
Repeal-and-Delay Would Make Budget Neutrality for ACA Replacement Difficult
Christine Eibner @Chrissyeibner
Jan 11, 2017
The Commonwealth Fund Blog
As Congress considers repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act, it will need to consider how federal budget scoring can affect the fate of legislation. Depending on the ultimate cost of a replacement, finding enough savings to offset costs while maintaining budget neutrality could make it hard to pass a replacement.
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Health Insurance Cost Sharing
commentary
At 40, a Pioneering Health Care Experiment Remains Relevant
Michael D. Rich @michaeldrich
Apr 18, 2016
The RAND Blog
The impact of RAND's Health Insurance Experiment has been wide-reaching. The study's conclusions encouraged the restructuring of private insurance and helped increase the stature of managed care in the United States.
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Affordable Care Act
commentary
Modifying the ACA's Family Subsidy Rules to Help Ensure Affordability
Amado Cordova, Sarah A. Nowak, Evan Saltzman
Jan 12, 2016
The Commonwealth Fund Blog
The ACA encourages workers to retain employer coverage by restricting their eligibility for marketplace subsidies. Modifying the policy could help 700,000 people gain coverage and lower spending for 1.6 million who are insured but face high health care costs under current ACA policy.
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Health Insurance Cost Sharing
commentary
What Happens If the ACA's Tax Credits Are Replaced with Premium Support?
Evan Saltzman, Christine Eibner @Chrissyeibner
Nov 24, 2015
The Commonwealth Fund Blog
As policymakers consider alternatives to reduce the federal government's financial burden from providing subsidies under the ACA, they should consider the consequences for enrollees. Existing premium-support models yield considerable savings for the federal government but could create age and income disparities in coverage.
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Affordable Care Act
commentary
Insurance Enrollment Holds Steady in Advance of the 2016 Open Enrollment Period
Katherine Grace Carman @KGCarman, Christine Eibner @Chrissyeibner
Nov 12, 2015
The RAND Blog
Since September 2013, the number of people with health insurance coverage has increased by 16.6 million. But since the second ACA open enrollment period in February 2015, the number of people with coverage has remained relatively flat. The third open enrollment period began on November 1. Whether the number of uninsured will continue to decline remains an open question.
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Affordable Care Act
commentary
Charging Older Adults Higher Premiums Could Cost Taxpayers
Christine Eibner @Chrissyeibner, Evan Saltzman
Sep 15, 2015
The Commonwealth Fund Blog
Under the Affordable Care Act, older adults cannot be charged more than three times as much as 21- to 24-year-olds for the same plan. Changing this rule to 5-to-1 may not be a cost-effective way to encourage enrollment among the young and healthy.
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Health Insurance Mandates
commentary
The Ramifications of Repealing the Individual Mandate
Evan Saltzman, Christine Eibner @Chrissyeibner
Aug 13, 2015
The Commonwealth Fund Blog
As part of its goal of near-universal coverage, the Affordable Care Act requires most Americans to obtain insurance or pay a penalty. Repealing that requirement would significantly reduce health insurance enrollment and cause individual market premiums to rise.
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