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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.

Report: Healthy People Are the Foundation for a Productive America (PDF)

12 pages. Excerpt: More and more employers, including hospitals, are recognizing that health status has a direct link to day-to-day productivity. They are taking new steps to promote health and wellness among their employees. Health care – that helps employees stay well, recover and return to work after illness, and effectively manage chronic conditions – not only benefits individuals but also has a positive effect for employers and the economy as a whole.

Gingrich Issues New 'Contract with America'; Includes Health Insurance Proposal

Republican Newt Gingrich ... will today call for Americans to have new choices in how they buy health insurance, pay their income taxes and save for retirement.

New Price Transparency Rule Will Help Transform America’s Health Care System

"The Trump administration's health care price transparency reform will help drive market competition among health insurance companies, health care systems, physicians, and other health care professionals. This will directly benefit patients by helping to drive down prices and improve quality. But how will this really work to improve the care provided to everyday Americans?"

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.

Retirement Heist: Overlooked Causes of The Retirement Crisis

On Monday, the Pension Rights Center, the New America Foundation, and AARP hosted a discussion, "Retirement Heist: Overlooked Causes of the Retirement Crisis." The forum centered on investigative journalist Ellen Schultz's new book, "Retirement Heist"[.]

The California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program: An Innovative Response to the Coming Retirement Security Crisis (PDF)

"A number of steps need to be taken and key questions addressed concerning the default plan features, funding, and product design before the California Secure Choice Retirement Savings Program launches. Moreover, the dialogue surrounding the program presents an opportunity for discussion and enactment of broader structural reforms to address some of the barriers beyond account access that impede low-income workers' ability to save adequately for retirement."

Expansion of Social Security: A Plan to Increase Retirement Security

"Retirement security is often thought of as three-legged 'stool' consisting of Social Security, employer retirement plans, and private savings. Social Security has been far more stable and successful than the other two legs of the stool. The reliance on these other legs of the system has resulted in a retirement security crisis for most Americans, shifting costs and risks onto individuals, even as the benefits of these programs go overwhelmingly to upper-income earners.... Instead of compounding failure by expanding private benefits, a category that includes rapidly-disappearing defined benefit pensions, employer-provided 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts (IRAs), we should substantially expand the successful, purely public Social Security program."

A Different Kind of Universal Coverage

Excerpt: A bill recently introduced in Sacramento, and supported by Governor Schwarzenegger, has the potential to cover almost every California worker. No longer will those unlucky enough to work for an employer who doesn't provide coverage be left vulnerable. No longer will those who seek to buy coverage on their own be priced out of the market. And best of all, it will cost virtually nothing. Interested? Good. But we aren't talking healthcare-we're talking retirement.

Cost of Failure: The Economic Losses of the Uninsured (PDF)

3 pages. Excerpt: In 2000, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) estimated that the 'annualized economic cost of the diminished health and shorter lifespan of Americans who lack health insurance is between $65 and $130 billion for each year of health insurance forgone.' After updating the IOM's numbers to reflect growth in the economy and increases in the number of uninsured, we estimate that the poor health and shorter lifespan of the uninsured cost the U.S. economy between $102 billion and $204 billion in2006. This estimate does not include spillover costs. For example, when medical bills go unpaid, providers attempt to recoup lost revenues by raising the rates for their services. In response, insurers raise premiums. This vicious cycle of 'cost shifting' inextricably links the uninsured to rising health care costs and premium rates for the insured. The economic cost imposed on the nation by the uninsured is as much as and perhaps greater than the public cost of covering them.