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111-Page Report by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: New Directions to a Healthier America (PDF)

111 pages. Excerpt: We found the strongest evidence for interventions that can have a lasting effect on the quality of health and life in programs that promote early childhood development and that support children and families. Therefore, many of our recommendations aim to ensure that our children have the best start in life and health. Along with social advantage and disadvantage, health is often passed across generations. Strategies for giving children a healthy start will help ensure future generations of healthy adults. This is indeed a wise long-term investment of scarce resources.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation: 'We Will Reverse the Epidemic of Childhood Obesity'

Excerpt: Coast to coast, the insidious spread of childhood obesity is the rule rather than the exception, even in the most food-secure corners of the country. City, suburbia, exurbia, rural countryside -- no family or community is immune.... Unless we turn back the epidemic of obesity at its point of origin -- among our children -- our society will pay a terrible human and financial price for as far out into the future as we can see.

Foundation Rolls Out Website: 'Coveringtheuninsured.com'

Excerpt: Covering the Uninsured is a national campaign of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and twelve major national organizations to raise awareness of the challenges facing the 39 million Americans with no health insurance. The campaign represents business, labor, doctors, nurses, hospitals, health care consumers and other Americans.

Foundation Establishes Website to Promote 'Cover the Uninsured Week'

covertheuninsuredweek.org - Cover the Uninsured Week is March 10 through 16, 2003.

Poll Finds Bipartisan Public Support for Creating State Insurance Exchanges Despite Continuing Party Divisions Over ACA

"A majority of Americans put the creation of state-based health insurance exchanges at the top of the priority list for health policy in their state this year, according to a survey ... by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health. Fifty-five percent of the public, including majorities of Republicans and Democrats, say that establishing the exchanges ... is a 'top priority' for their governor and legislature."

Number of Americans with Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance Drops Significantly Over Last Decade

Two new reports ... by the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) show there has been a significant erosion in employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) over the last decade, but that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is expected to help reverse the trend among small employers.

Near-Term Changes In Health Insurance

Excerpt: [In t]his new policy brief from Health Affairs and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the near-term effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are examined and enumerated, providing context for key immediate reforms to the private health insurance market that will take effect in 2010 and 2011. Early insurance market reforms are associated with two goals of health care reform: (1) reduc?ing barriers to health insurance and (2) improving the availability of information in the health care marketplace.

A State Policymaker's Guide to Federal Health Reform

Excerpt: Three documents released by the National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation identify the most challenging and pressing health policy issues that states are currently addressing; describe the array of tools states have to improve their health care systems and look at how federal health reform may affect those tools; and examine the support states will need to implement the changes contemplated in federal health reform legislation.

Health Reform Do's and Don'ts: Veterans of Early 90s' Health Reform Debate Offer Advice to Today's Reformers

Excerpt: To offer guidance to today's reformers and reporters covering today's reform efforts, the Alliance for Health Reform and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation sponsored a December 12 briefing for reporters featuring veterans of the 1990s debate. The Alliance will present a program on the same topic Jan. 18 on Capitol Hill, also cosponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. What went wrong in 1994? What should be done differently the next time around? Panelists answered these questions with many practical suggestions.

Research Highlight: Reinsuring Health - A Proposal to Make Health Insurance More Affordable (PDF)

2 pages. Excerpt: This research highlight summarizes Katherine Swartz's book, Reinsuring Health: Why More Middle-Class People Are Uninsured and What Government Can Do, funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The book explains why health insurance is cheaper for large employer groups and outlines a proposal to make health insurance less expensive for individuals and small groups through government reinsurance.

New Competition Seeks 'Disruptive Innovations' in Health and Health Care

Excerpt: A competition has launched to find disruptive innovations that could dramatically reshape the health and health care marketplace. The online competition, 'Disruptive Innovations in Health and Health Care-Solutions People Want,' is sponsored by the Pioneer Portfolio of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) and uses a unique open source competition model developed by Changemakers, an initiative of Ashoka that promotes enterprising solutions to social problems.

A Special Topic Solicitation on the Use of Consumer Information in Health Care (PDF)

2 pages. Excerpt: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, through its Changesin Health Care Financing and Organization (HCFO) initiative, is issuing a special topic solicitation on the use of consumer information. The HCFO program funds investigator-initiated research on issues of health care financing and health care organization that have implications for public policy.

District Court Dismisses Johnson & Johnson ERISA Suit Over Drug Costs

"A federal judge [has] dismissed the primary claims in a lawsuit alleging that Johnson & Johnson had mismanaged prescription drug benefits for employees. Judge Zahid N. Quraishi ... ruled that plaintiffs Ann Lewandowski and Robert Gregory failed to show they had standing to allege that the company had breached its fiduciary duty under [ERISA]." [Lewandowski v. Johnson & Johnson, No. 24-0671 (D.N.J. Nov. 26, 2025)]

Johnson & Johnson Escapes Breach of Fiduciary Duty Lawsuit Due to Dudenhoeffer's Difficult Pleading Standard

"Plaintiffs argue Defendants Fasolo and Caruso could and should have made public disclosures about the asbestos in talc power. The court engaged in a lengthy discussion on this issue, ultimately concluding Plaintiffs' alternative action would require Defendants to make public disclosures in their corporate capacities and that ERISA liability can only arise from actions taken while acting in a fiduciary capacity." [Perrone v. Johnson & Johnson, No. 19-923 (D.N.J. Apr. 29, 2020; unpub.)]

The Decline in Employer-Sponsored Health Expense Coverage: Why It's Happening and Why We Need to Be Concerned (PDF)

4 pages. Excerpt: In September 2007 the Alliance for Health Reform, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, held a Capitol Hill briefing to examine the state of employer-based coverage. Panelists were Paul Fronstin, Employee Benefit Research Institute; Robert Galvin, General Electric; Gerald Shea, AFL-CIO; and Len Nichols, New America Foundation. This issue brief incorporates material from that briefing.

Public Health Has Less to Do with Health Insurance Than One Might Think

Excerpt: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Commission to Build a Healthier America has just released a new report: Beyond Health Care.... 'Beyond Health Care' does a masterful job of pointing out that the conventional wisdom about what we need to do to improve the health of our population is blinkered. Many pundits assume that providing access to medical care will solve our problems. Others insist that lecturing Americans on 'personal responsibility' will do the trick. The report makes it clear that the received wisdom is wrong on both counts.

Research Teams Unveil Personal Health Record Application Prototypes

Excerpt: [A] $5 million Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program unveiled nine prototype applications for personal health records .... The research teams participating in the Project HealthDesign initiative will publish details about their findings and work to implement their PHR applications in the clinical practices connected to their institutions.

National Project to Provide Health Care Quality, Cost Data Online

Excerpt: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has pledged $15.9 million in grants to develop and test a national model for reporting health care cost and quality data to the public, Health Data Management reports.

Church Plan Litigation: Out of the ERISA Woods Into the State Law Forest

"A recent slip opinion in a case involving a church plan maintained by a hospital in upstate New York reminds us that being a non-ERISA plan brings its own set of challenges because state law is not preempted. In particular, the case illustrates that, if a church plan starts to fail to pay benefits, its sponsor -- as well as related entities such as the church it is controlled by or associated with -- may find themselves subject to various pension-related claims under state law." [Hartshorne v. The Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, New York, 2021 NY Slip Op. 07329 (3rd App. Div., Dec. 23, 2021)]

Johnson and Johnson (Again) Beats Back Allegations of Fiduciary Breach Regarding Prescription Drug Program

"Plan fiduciaries notched another victory in a much-watched, bellwether case alleging breaches of fiduciary duty for failures to manage the drug costs of employer-sponsored health plans." [Lewandowski v. Johnson & Johnson, No. 24-0671 (D.N.J. Nov. 26, 2025)]