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Families USA Director Explains What Could Block Health Care Reform

Excerpt: [Ron Pollack, director of Families USA,] told a small group of bloggers and journalists in an interview at the Families USA conference last Friday, 'I know where the sharp dividing lines are.' When ... asked 'What are the intractable differences between the insurance industry and health care reform?' Pollack listed three[.]

Dying for Health Insurance Coverage - New State Reports from Families USA

Excerpt: In 2002, the Institute of Medicine released a groundbreaking report, Care without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late, which estimated that 18,000 adults nationwide died in 2000 because they did not have health insurance. Subsequently, The Urban Institute estimated that 22,000 adults died in 2006 because they did not have health insurance. To find out what this means for people across the nation, Families USA has generated the first-ever state-level estimates of the number of deaths due to lack of health insurance. Our estimates are based on both the Institute of Medicine and The Urban Institute methodologies applied to state-level data.

Families USA and Health Care Reform

Excerpt: Back in the day when there was some vague interest from Democrats in fixing our health care system, a kindly millionaire gave a pile of money to a lobbying pressure group that had quite some influence behind the ill-fated Clinton Health Plan. Not too much has been heard since from Families USA and its leader Ron Pollack. Sadly, those of us of a certain age felt that its day in the sun had come and gone.

Families USA Report Says Gap in Medicare Drug Coverage Will Be Costly

Excerpt: Medicare beneficiaries will have to pay substantially more next year for coverage of brand-name prescription drugs that keeps them from falling into the 'doughnut hole,' according to a new report that government officials swiftly criticized as incomplete.

Health Care Costs Too Great a Burden: America's Families at Risk (PDF)

28 pages. Excerpt: In order to understand how high health care costs affect American families, Families USA commissioned The Lewin Group to analyze data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Census Bureau. This analysis allowed us to determine how many non-elderly people are in families that will spend more than 10 percent of their pre-tax income, and how many will spend more than 25 percent of their pre-tax income, on health care costs in 2008.

Health Care Costs Too Great a Burden: America's Families at Risk

Excerpt: In order to understand how high health care costs affect American families, Families USA commissioned The Lewin Group to analyze data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Census Bureau. This analysis allowed us to determine how many non-elderly people are in families that will spend more than 10 percent of their pre-tax income, and how many will spend more than 25 percent of their pre-tax income, on health care costs in 2008.

How the Affordable Care Act Helps America's Families

Our examination found that both lower- and middle-income families will be financial winners, and both uninsured and insured families will come out ahead.

Out-of-Pocket Spending Caps Protect America's Families

[The project] examines how the Affordable Care Act will protect insured people from high medical costs through new caps on out-of-pocket spending. It provides state-level estimates of how many residents will have spending that exceeds these caps and by how much, and it looks at how many of those residents work for small businesses.

Families Caught Between Unemployment Benefits and Health Care Costs

Excerpt: This report shows that, to maintain their employer-based health coverage under COBRA, most unemployed people would have to devote an unrealistically high proportion of their incomes to health insurance. For many, it would take their entire unemployment check and more to continue coverage for themselves and their families. However, if laid-off workers do not continue their employer-based coverage by electing COBRA and instead seek coverage in the individual health insurance market, those with health problems are likely to find that no insurer will sell them a policy that will cover their pre-existing conditions at any price. Thus,many American workers find themselves in a catch-22.

Most Health Insurance Subsidies to Aid Working Families

"About 25.7 million people who fall between 138% and 400% of the poverty level -- or below $46,000 for a single adult and $94,000 for a family of four -- will be eligible for funds that will go directly to an insurance plan that they choose. According to the Congressional Budget Office, those subsidies will cost about $350 billion from 2010 to 2019, but taxes and savings built into the law will offset them."