State still pushing on with universal health care study, The Daily Gazette - (November 16, 2008)

Earlier this year, the state awarded the Washington-based Urban Institute a contract to develop three models for providing universal health coverage and analyze the cost and coverage implications for each proposal. The organization’s report is expected by the end of the year, according to the state Department of Health.

Amid slump, need for government aid soaring, MSNBC.com - (November 13, 2008)

A study by the Urban Institute found a direct link between joblessness and a surge in Medicaid applications during the last recession in 2001: When the unemployment rate rose by 1 percentage point, the number of people eligible for the low-income medical coverage spiked by 1.5 million. The current jobless rate of 6.5 percent is up 1.7 percentage points from a year ago, suggesting 2.5 million more people might be eligible for Medicaid and other programs.

Future of Nation’s Health Care May Take Its Cue From Massachusetts, Workforce Management - (November 11, 2008)

“It’s worth noting that Massachusetts made the decision to go forward and expand health insurance coverage knowing they were not addressing the cost issue,” said Sharon Long, principal research associate at the Urban Institute, during the roundtable.

Blacks look to Obama to reform society, The Gainesville Sun - (November 9, 2008)

Blacks are more likely than whites to be uninsured. Twenty-one percent of blacks younger than 65 were uninsured in 2005 compared with 13 percent of whites in the same age range, according to research by the Urban Institute and Kaiser Family Foundation.

How health coverage may change under Obama, Marketwatch.com - (November 6, 2008)

Still, analysts project the cost of the Obama plan would exceed his campaign estimates. Obama's plan will run $1.3 trillion in the next decade, according to estimates from the Tax Policy Center, a nonprofit joint venture between the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institution.

Obama's plan would significantly broaden coverage, but it would leave about 6% of the working-age population uninsured compared with 17% of the non-elderly who are uninsured today, according to an analysis from the Urban Institute.

Expert Panel Calls for Medicare Payment Reform, American Association of Family Physicians - (November 5, 2008)

Robert Berenson, M.D., a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, also called for major payment reform, saying that certain subspecialists earn two to three times more than family physicians or internists. This, in turn, has put primary care in peril.

"We are facing a crisis of an absence of primary care physicians," Berenson said. "Physicians of my generation are about to retire if the stock market goes up a little bit. In Medicare, we are going to have a real problem of access to care."

Berenson cited data underscoring the need for care coordination and primary care services. For example, 20 percent of Medicare patients suffer from five or more chronic conditions, see 14 different physicians, and take 60 prescriptions a year, according to Berenson. This creates the potential for different physicians ordering different prescriptions that might be incompatible, Berenson said.

In addition, said Berenson, "There is data to suggest that doctors give different diagnoses and patients are confused -- they really don't know what to do."

Twenty percent of Medicare patients admitted to a hospital are readmitted within a 30-day period. During the time between discharge and readmission, half of those patients do not see a health care professional of any type, which Berenson called "stunning." It is indicative of a system that lacks integration and care coordination, he said.

"There are a lot of people who will clearly go and defend their turf," said Berenson. "But they know (the system) is broken, and it is hard to defend what they are getting."

However, said Berenson, these physicians can be appealed to as long as they are sufficiently well compensated. "I think we can get beyond the current paradigm of each interest group fighting against each other," he said.

How will Obama relate to the District?, The Politico - (November 5, 2008)

The White House's level of involvement in D.C. is particularly important to the city's black residents. They have the most to benefit from an active First Couple. They live in the city's most blighted neighborhoods and attend the city's worst schools — though Washington also has a large, long-established black middle-class. They are also 2½ times more likely to be uninsured than white D.C. residents, according to a study by the nonpartisan Urban Institute.

3 steps to wider health care, The Philadelphia Inquirer - (November 5, 2008)

More than five million uninsured Americans already qualify for health-insurance coverage through their employers. Yet, according to the Urban Institute, more than 25 percent of eligible workers have not enrolled in their employer-sponsored insurance plans.

Panel Offers Array of Suggestions to Overhaul U.S. Health System, CQ Politics - (November 3, 2008)

Other authors, including Robert Berenson, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute, noted that the country may soon find itself with a shortage of doctors trained in the fields of primary care and geriatrics because those areas tend to pay less.

"We are going to have a real problem in access to care," Berenson said. "Next year Congress has to deal with reimbursement."

Congress could consider increasing reimbursements or offering funding for programs such as the National Health Service Corps that offer loan repayment, he said. But an even more innovative approach would be for Congress to create new pay models that promote changes in medical organization, such as multispecialty group practices, according to Berenson.

Medicare won't pay for errors anymore, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - (November 1, 2008)

"It's a move in the right direction," said Robert Berenson, a physician and senior fellow at the Urban Institute, a public policy research organization.

Editorial: Healthy Investment,  The Post-Standard - (October 30, 2008)

An Urban Institute study published in January found that 137,000 people died prematurely from 2000 through 2006 because they didn't have insurance and couldn't afford timely medical care.

Kansas District 13 candidates debate economy, healthcare, The Ford Scott Tribune - (October 28, 2008)

In 2007, more than 330,000 Kansans were without access to affordable health care, according to the Census Bureau's March 2007 and 2008 Current Population Survey. That statistic translates to about 14 percent of Kansas' population being without health benefits. Possibly even more surprising is the fact that nearly 80 percent of those uninsured are steadily employed, according to the Urban Institute and Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured.

McCain health plan funds universal coverage and lowers cost,  Columbia Missourian - (October 27, 2008)

The notion that HSAs are only for the rich has been debunked. The Urban Institute found that "on average, lower wage workers would benefit from switching to HSA/catastrophic plans," and the vast number of patients would be financial winners, according to a report by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Diagnosing The Health Care Debate, CBS News Sunday Morning - (October 26, 2008)

"The practical effect of the changes in the tax system that he's talking about are going to decrease employer sponsored insurance," said Linda Blumberg of the non-partisan Urban Institute's Health Policy Center.

That's because, according to Blumberg, young, healthy people will be able to find cheaper coverage on the open market than at work. And employers may no longer feel obligated to offer group insurance for everyone else.

The McCain plan, I think, would actually hurt people who have health conditions and people who are older, because they would not fare as well obtaining health insurance coverage away from their employers."

"Well, there is potential for big increases on spending if we're not careful about putting a serious emphasis on cost containment," Blumberg said.

Voters compare McCain, Obama health care plans, The SouthtownStar - (October 26, 2008)

Mysteries remain in the specifics of the presidential candidates' health care agendas and how, in practice, they would affect the nation. But the election arrives at a time when 10 percent of Americans account for 65 percent of all health care spending, said Linda Blumberg, principal research associate for the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute, a nonpartisan center that studies U.S. social and economic issues.

"We're talking about a very small percentage of people that account for more than half of health care spending," she said. "It's a very skewed distribution of spending."

At their very core, the McCain and Obama strategies stand in stark contrast to one another, said Blumberg, who last month authored analyses of both proposals.

McCain's plan separates the healthy from the sick by eliminating a tax subsidy for employer-based insurance. He would let Americans buy coverage across state lines, enticing the healthy to find a better deal elsewhere that would save them money but make health care more costly and inaccessible for the sick, Blumberg found.

Indeed, healthy Americans like Bill Latham would see an increase in their costs. Blumberg said it would be modest but that specifics aren't available.

Claim: Community-based disease prevention could save California money, Central Valley Business Times - (October 23, 2008)

An investment of $10 per person per year in community-based disease prevention programs to increase physical activity, improve nutrition, and prevent smoking and other tobacco use could save California’s health care system more than $1.7 billion within five years, claims the report by the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH), the Prevention Institute and the Urban Institute. California’s population is roughly 37 million by some estimates.

The Urban Institute says it gathers data, conducts research, evaluates programs, offers technical assistance overseas, and educates Americans on social and economic issues to foster sound public policy and effective government.

Health care: What they're proposing vs. what will pass, CNNMoney.com - (October 22, 2008)

After years of talk about reform, Washington observers say the time finally seems right for action. "There is pretty broad interest in doing something to help small employers and workers in small firms because they do have such a high rate of uninsured," says Urban Institute economist Linda Blumberg.

The HAA got a boost earlier this year when the Congressional Budget Office projected it could be budget-neutral - in other words, pay for itself - within six years. But some wonder if its massive restructuring of the how businesses pay for health care would be too complex. In particular, Blumberg worries, trying to determine how much employers should cough up for their "cash out" payments could be extremely messy: "I applaud the notion, because it's very consistent with economic theory, but I think implementation might cause difficulties."

Health care plans: Obama vs. McCain, USA Today - (October 22, 2008)

Premium savings may be possible over time if all of Obama's ideas are "aggressively" pursued, says an analysis by the Urban Institute, a think tank.

The cost of insurance could go down for businesses with mainly younger, healthier workers, but companies with older or sicker workers would see costs rise or may not be able to find coverage at all, according to an Urban Institute analysis.

Coverage plans contrast sharply, St. Louis Post-Dispatch - (October 21, 2008)

The plan, despite significantly broadening coverage, would leave about 6 percent of the working-age population uninsured compared with 17 percent of the non-elderly who are uninsured today, according to an analysis from the Urban Institute.

"Neither plan addresses the undocumented population," said Linda Blumberg, an economist at the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center in Washington. "They would have to continue to be served by safety net providers."

Cornyn, Noriega split on health care, Austin American-Statesman - (October 20, 2008)

According to a study by the Urban Institute, about 80 percent of the children who would have gained coverage from the plan that Bush vetoed came from families with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level, which was $41,300 for a family of four.

Florida Medicaid enrollees have difficulty choosing a health plan, CCH® Medicaid - (October 20, 2008)

Three-quarters of the enrollees who were unaware of their need to choose a plan said that they had not been told so by the state, suggesting that they either did not receive, did not read or did not understand the state's letter and other communications about their transition, conclude the study's researchers at the Urban Institute, Kaiser and the University of Florida.

Medicaid changes confuse many in Lee County, The News-Press - (October 18, 2008)

Policy experts from the Urban Institute, Kaiser Family Foundation and University of Florida analyzed how well residents in Broward and Duval counties - two of the counties piloting the changes - fared in switching from state-run to privatized Medicaid.

Presidential Debate: Joe the Plumber and Health Care, WebMD - (October 17, 2008)

Stephen Zuckerman, PhD, of the economic and social policy research group Urban Institute, tells WebMD that Obama has never specified how many employees a small business could have.

Zuckerman says even if the figure is accurate, "the notion that average family premiums would fall by $2,500 may not be the best way to think about this number."

AuthenTec critical of shareholder suit, Orlando Sentinel  - (October 15, 2008)

A study released Tuesday confirmed early reports that many enrollees in Florida's Medicaid reform program were confused about their options. The findings, released in an article in the health-policy journal Health Affairs and based on the Kaiser Family Foundation's 2006-2007 survey of Florida Medicaid beneficiaries, found that three in 10 enrollees didn't know they needed to make a health plan choice, and more than half of them had difficulty making a choice. In 2006, the state implemented a pilot project, focused on Duval and Broward counties, that allowed private health plans to offer Medicaid enrollees a choice of plans with different benefits. The Kaiser Family Foundation, University of Florida and the Urban Institute are conducting a new survey to gather more information about enrollees' experiences in the reform program.

Feder Takes On Wolf, Great Falls Connection- (October 15, 2008)

In addition to teaching at Georgetown University, Feder has also worked at policy think tanks, the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute. She is considered an expert on the nation’s health insurance programs.

"She is very well known and very well respected," said Linda Blumberg, who does health care policy research for the Urban Institute.

Candidates taking different approaches on health care, Minnesota Public Radio - (October 14, 2008)

"The McCain one would be a more dramatic change in how health care markets work and how health care is purchased by a lot of people in the country," said Linda Blumberg, an economist with the non-partisan Urban Institute's Health Policy Center. "So it's pretty bold."

Blumberg said that could cause some employers to drop their coverage altogether. And, while employees would still have a tax credit they could use to buy insurance on the private market, she said insurers wouldn't be obligated to sell their products to everyone.

"Those who aren't in perfect health are going to have a much more difficult time accessing care that they need in a system that's really grounded in the non-group market, instead of the group," Blumberg said.

But healthy patients might see better prices on their health coverage and Blumberg said the plan would also give more federal subsidies for health insurance to low income workers than currently exist.

While McCain's plan represents a dramatic change, Blumberg said Obama's plan feels more familiar.

"The Obama one tends to be taking the system that we've got and saying, 'okay well let's expand upon it and try to fill in the gaps that we know are there,'" Blumberg said.

Rather than placing the responsibility on consumers to find their own insurance, Blumberg said Obama would expand government-sponsored insurance pools and put more regulations on insurers.

"The Obama plan would prohibit insurers from denying coverage to individuals based on their health status and would really broaden the way that risk is shared across the healthy and the sick," Blumberg said.

To pay for his plan, Obama would require large employers who don't offer health insurance to contribute a percentage of their payroll toward the cost of a federal insurance plan. Blumberg said the campaign hasn't revealed the cost of the tax. If it's high, she said Obama could encounter a lot of resistance to his plan from employers.

Florida Medicaid Reform Often A Mystery, Tampa Tribune - (October 14, 2008)

Enrollees who fail to choose the right plan may be denied needed care, "which could have major health consequences," the researchers from the Urban Institute, Kaiser Family Foundation and the University of Florida wrote. Their study, appearing in Health Affairs, drew on a survey conducted in 2006-2007, when the program first took effect.

Medicaid changes spawn confusion in Florida, The News-Press - (October 14, 2008)

Policy experts from the Urban Institute, Kaiser Family Foundation and University of Florida analyzed how well residents in Broward and Duval counties — two of the counties piloting the changes — fared in switching from state-run to privatized Medicaid. Thirty percent of the enrollees surveyed did not know they had been switched and between 71 and 77 percent reported they had not been told they needed to choose a plan, the researchers reported. That suggests they either did not read, did not receive or did not understand the state’s notification.

Study calls Broward Medicaid program confusing, Miami Herald - (October 14, 2008)

The authors included researchers from the Urban Institute, the Kaiser Family Foundation and R. Paul Duncan and Allyson G. Hall of the Florida Center for Medicaid and the Uninsured at the University of Florida.

Sorting out the truth on health care, St. Petersburg Times - (October 11, 2008)

McCain proposes repealing the long-standing tax exemption on employer-provided insurance. But in exchange, he proposes a tax credit of $2,500 per person to spend on any health insurance they wish. They might choose to use their employer's plan and use the tax credit to offset the new tax on the benefit, or they might go off and buy insurance on their own. Ideally, this will increase competition among health care plans. The tax credit is payable to insurance companies as a way of ensuring that people use it to buy health insurance. Any extra money would go to a special health care spending account. There's ample evidence that the plan would be a wash for most workers. The McCain campaign says only those with "gold-plated" coverage would do worse. An analysis from the nonpartisan Urban Institute confirms it: "In general, lower-income people with health insurance would receive benefits from the credit that would be well in excess of the value that they receive from today's tax exemption." So McCain's health plan does not leave you "on your own" to pay a health insurance tax. His plan gives you a credit to work with. We rate Obama's statement Barely True.

Scrutinizing candidates' health-reform proposals, MarketWatch -  (October 7, 2008)

Obama's plan, despite significantly broadening coverage, would leave about 6% of the working-age population uninsured compared with 17% of the non-elderly who are uninsured today, according to an analysis from the Urban Institute.

"Neither plan addresses the undocumented population," said Linda Blumberg, an economist at the Urban Institute's Health Policy Center in Washington. "They would have to continue to be served by safety-net providers."

Summa offers cures for U.S. health care, Akron Beacon Journal - (October 7, 2008)

The event also featured speeches by Dr. Robert Berenson, a Medicare expert and senior fellow at the Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C.; and Chris Jennings, a national health policy expert who served as senior health-care adviser to President Clinton.

Integrated health-care systems that bring together hospitals and doctors can be part of the solution, particularly when it comes to coordinating the care for people with several chronic illnesses, Berenson said.

About 5 percent of enrollees account for 43 percent of all health-care spending in Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people ages 65 and older and some younger disabled Americans, he said.

''We have a real opportunity...to get some hold over this, to improve quality and reduce costs,'' Berenson said.

Obama attacks McCain's healthcare proposal, Los Angeles Times - (October 5, 2008)

John Holahan, director of the nonpartisan Health Policy Research Center at the Urban Institute, said that though Obama's wording about the 20 million workers was technically correct, analyses of McCain's plan have shown "the net effect is more or less a wash, or a small gain."

"After five to 10 years, the current tax deduction is going to be worth more than the current value of the credit," Holahan said. "Depending on your income -- you could be worse or better off."  

Issues: Health Care: An Urgent Need, CQ WEEKLY – IN FOCUS - (October 4, 2008)

Experts say a growing number of Americans who aren't poor or sick enough to qualify for public assistance and who are currently grappling with rising food, energy and housing costs - are putting off preventive care or treatment for chronic conditions, making them more likely to be hospitalized later for illnesses that could have been prevented.  An Urban Institute study released in January estimated that 22,000 people died in 2006 due to circumstances directly a rising from their lack of health insurance.

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