Our Health Policy Matters

In fewer than 100 days, the Obamacare insurance exchanges will be open for business.  Fifteen states will be running their own exchanges.  Thirty-five will be relying on the federal exchange. Vangent, which is running the federal call center, is preparing for 200,000 calls per day between now and the first of October . The federal government has also re-tooled its site, www.healthcare.gov , to provide up-to-date information about the exchanges. These are parts of a massive consumer education campaign, which is badly needed.  Because as of two months ago – three years after its enactment and a year after the Supreme Court affirmed almost all of it – according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 42 percent of Americans did not even know that Obamacare was the law of the land. Obamacare is and will remain the law of the land.  And here ten things you need to know today as you prepare for it to take full effect. One, if you are part of a family o...

In fewer than 100 days, the Obamacare insurance exchanges will be open for business.  Fifteen states will be running their own exchanges.  Thirty-five will be relying on the federal exchange. Vangent, which is running the federal call center, is preparing for 200,000 calls per day between now and the first of October . The federal government has also re-tooled its site, www.healthcare.gov , to provide up-to-date information about the exchanges. These are parts of a massive consumer education campaign, which is badly needed.  Because as of two months ago – three years after its enactment and a year after the Supreme Court affirmed almost all of it – according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, 42 percent of Americans did not even know that Obamacare was the law of the land. Obamacare is and will remain the law of the land.  And here ten things you need to know today as you prepare for it to take full effect. One, if you are part of a family o...

Note: After the Supreme Court releases its ruling on the Affordable Care Act, OHPM will be publishing analysis and commentary on what the decision means for key subgroups of the population.  Come back to this site early and often for writing that will cut through the noise!  Just before he was forced out of his job as a senior Florida public health official – joining thousands of his colleagues across the country who have recently met the same fate – Daniel Parker commented that “we are victims of a false portrayal of public services as waste .” He is so right. Source: CMS Data, Health Affairs, June 2012 (online) Last year, we spent over $86 billion on public health services. That may seem like a big number.  But it represents only 3% of our nation’s total health spending.  For that 3%, we have doubled our life expectancy over the last century.  We’ve immunized our children, improved the quality of our food and water, and gotten dangero...

Note: After the Supreme Court releases its ruling on the Affordable Care Act, OHPM will be publishing analysis and commentary on what the decision means for key subgroups of the population.  Come back to this site early and often for writing that will cut through the noise!  Just before he was forced out of his job as a senior Florida public health official – joining thousands of his colleagues across the country who have recently met the same fate – Daniel Parker commented that “we are victims of a false portrayal of public services as waste .” He is so right. Source: CMS Data, Health Affairs, June 2012 (online) Last year, we spent over $86 billion on public health services. That may seem like a big number.  But it represents only 3% of our nation’s total health spending.  For that 3%, we have doubled our life expectancy over the last century.  We’ve immunized our children, improved the quality of our food and water, and gotten dangero...