SUMMARIES OF  5
COMMONWEALTH  REPORTS
July - Dec 2001

View these from commonwealth fund directly.  

• Provision of Health Coverage to Workers in Small Businesses
• Ethnic Disparities and Widespread Confusion
• Diagnosing Disparities in Health Insurance for Women: A Prescription for Change
• A series of reports outlining steps that state policymakers can take immediately to strengthen health care services for young children
• Insuring the Uninsurable: An Overview of State High-Risk Health Insurance Pools

Additionally, see summaries of 9 reports from December 2000 - June 2001 hosted by the Commonwealth Fund

Additionally, see summaries of 12 reports from the December 2000 conference hosted by the Commonwealth Fund

Or see titles of 22 reports from the June 2000 and earlier hosted by the Commonwealth Fund
 

Ethnic Disparities and Widespread Confusion, by Ruth T. Perot and Mara Youdelman  Nov. 2001

"Racial, Ethnic, and Primary Language Data Collection in the Health Care System: An Assessment of Federal Policies and Practices" provides the first comprehensive analysis of the policies and statutes governing the collection of health care data by race, ethnicity, and primary language.

Documents widespread confusion in the health care sector about the legality of collecting information on the race and ethnicity of people served by their programs; concerns over misuse or misinterpretation of data; lack of standards or enforcement; and technical difficulties in collecting or using the data. 

CLICK HERE to download, or order Racial, Ethnic, and Primary Language Data Collection in the Health Care System: An Assessment of Federal Policies and Practices (ACROBAT). 

CLICK HERE to read press release for Racial, Ethnic, and Primary Language Data Collection in the Health Care System: An Assessment of Federal Policies and Practices at Commonwealth Website

DIAGNOSING DISPARITIES IN HEALTH INSURANCE FOR WOMEN: A PRESCRIPTION FOR CHANGE, by Jeanne Lambrew

A new report by The Commonwealth Fund documents disparities that women face in accessing both health care and health insurance. In Diagnosing Disparities in Health Insurance for Women: A Prescription for Change, author Jeanne Lambrew of George Washington University projects that the number of uninsured women will increase and the unique challenges they face will only grow worse if current trends continue.

Following a review of selected insurance coverage expansion approaches, the report concludes that building on insurance options that currently exist -- such as employer-sponsored insurance, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Medicaid -- offers the greatest promise. These options represent the most targeted and potentially effective approaches for increasing access to affordable coverage for the nation’s 15 million uninsured women.

CLICK HERE to download, or order Diagnosing Disparities in Health Insurance for Women: A Prescription for Change (ACROBAT). 

CLICK HERE to read press release for Diagnosing Disparities in Health Insurance for Women: A Prescription for Change at Commonwealth Website

SERIES: REPORTS ON STEPS FOR STATE POLICYMAKERS TO STRENGTHEN HEALTH CARE SERVICES FOR YOUNG CHILDREN, by Sara Rosenbaum and colleagues

Recent scientific research confirms the crucial influence of the earliest years on a child's long-term health and development. A new series of reports outline a number of steps that state policymakers can take immediately to strengthen health care services for young children and promote the healthy physical, emotional, and cognitive development of very young children. The reports were written by Sara Rosenbaum and her colleagues at the George Washington University Medical Center and School of Public Health and Health Services for The Commonwealth Fund's Assuring Better Child Health and Development (ABCD) program.

Room to Grow: Promoting Child Development Through Medicaid and CHIP suggests that states have many opportunities to deliver child development interventions through Medicaid and CHIP, which together provide health care coverage to nearly one of three insured children. Colleen Sonosky, a coauthor of the reports, presented information from this report to health policy leaders yesterday, August 13th, at the annual meeting of the National Academy for State Health Policy in Charlotte, North Carolina.

In Child Development Programs in Community Health Centers (CHCs), the authors report that states can potentially increase reimbursements to CHCs under a change enacted in the Benefits Improvement and Protection Act (BIPA) of 2000. CHCs served 4.5 million low-income children in 1998, including 1.3 million under age 6.

In Using the Title V Maternal and Child Health Services Block Grant to Support Child Development Services for Children Ages 0-3, the authors note that states have the policy flexibility to use Title V funds to improve the provision of preventive health services to low-income children under 3 who are eligible for Medicaid or CHIP (as well as those who are not). They present four approaches state Title V agencies can take to coordinate with their state Medicaid and CHIP programs.

Health Policy and Early Child Development: An Overview, presents a brief history of the federal government's role in providing early childhood health and development services.

CLICK HERE to read press release for An Overview, or Room to Grow: Promoting Child Development Through Medicaid and CHIP at the Commonwealth website.

State high-risk insurance pools were designed in part to help people who are denied private health coverage because of serious existing or previous illnesses. But a new report from The Commonwealth Fund finds that these programs, currently available in 29 states, offer only limited help for those they were designed to protect. In Insuring the Uninsurable: An Overview of State High-Risk Health Insurance Pools, Lori Achman and Deborah Chollet of Mathematica Policy Research indicate that high premiums, deductibles, and copayments make high-risk pools unaffordable for people with serious medical conditions. Waiting periods for those with certain medical conditions, waiting lists, and lack of marketing also keep enrollment rates low. Just 1.2 percent of those insured in the individual market-about 110,000 individuals nationwide-are insured through high-risk pools.

The access and affordability problems of state high-risk insurance pools highlight the limitations of the individual health insurance market. "A mixture of systems-maintaining high-risk pools and reforming the individual market for health insurance-seems to offer the most promising solution, balancing the interests of consumers, insurers, and taxpayers," said Chollet. She discussed the correlation between health insurance premiums and high-risk pools at an August 10th Alliance for Health Reform briefing on the individual health insurance market

CLICK HERE to download Insuring the Uninsurable: An Overview of State High-Risk Health Insurance Pools 
CLICK HERE to read press release for Insuring the Uninsurable: An Overview of State High-Risk Health Insurance Pools at the Commonwealth website.

Small businesses are far less likely to be able to get health insurance through their employers. Public sector support-including expertise, offsetting expenses of the highest cost claims, seed money, and regulatory reform-is likely to be needed to make business initiatives effective in filling the health insurance gaps experienced by employees of small businesses. The report, "Business Initiatives to Expand Health Coverage for Workers in Small Firms", by Jack A. Meyer of the Economic and Social Research Institute and Lise S. Rybowski of The Severyn Group, assesses the potential of purchasing coalitions formed by larger businesses to help small firms improve access to health insurance. The report suggests that these measures have experienced only marginal success in achieving their main goal.

CLICK HERE to download Business Initiatives to Expand Health Coverage for Workers in Small Firms
CLICK HERE to read press release for IBusiness Initiatives to Expand Health Coverage for Workers in Small Firms at the Commonwealth website.