The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was designed to provide health insurance to uninsured or underinsured individuals. We used the California Simulation of Insurance Markets (CalSIM) model to predict the experience of consumers in California, who will be faced with new insurance...

This article analyzes potential barriers in the U.S. to the patient-centered medical home model, which is considered policy shorthand for the reinvention of primary care. Barriers include developing new payment models, personnel and infrastructure funding, and methods to facilitate transforming...

To shed light on the multidimensional issue of health care access, this study identifies nonfinancial barriers to health care uninsured low-income adults in three diverse communities face. It also determines how frequently nonfinancial barriers and financial access barriers coexist in this...

From 2001 to 2008, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation funded the Economic Research Initiative on the Uninsured (ERIU), housed at the University of Michigan. The goals of ERIU were to increase, diversify, and improve the quality and quantity of economics research on the uninsured, and to...

This issue brief evaluates the effects of a permanent 10 percent increase in Medicare fees for primary care ambulatory visits on Medicare costs. Using a simulation model with real-world parameters, the study found that, in spite of raising the overall cost of primary care visits, such a fee...

This article identifies continuing issues and barriers for many consumers seeking health coverage in high-risk insurance pools under the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The article notes how the new federal program is intended to serve only the currently uninsured—leaving...

Faced with rising uninsurance rates and little response at state or federal levels in recent years, communities have developed many different types of strategies to provide care for uninsured persons. This article profiles local strategies in the Community Tracking Study sites, focusing on...

Since enacting comprehensive health care reform in 2003, Maine's Dirigo Health program has helped expand coverage for low- and moderate-income individuals. By September 2006, about 16,100 individuals were enrolled in two coverage initiatives—DirigoChoice, a subsidized insurance product,...