Over the past 25 years, evaluators of social programs have searched for nonexperimental methods that can substitute effectively for experimental ones. Recently, the spotlight has focused on one method, propensity score matching (PSM), as the suggested approach for evaluating employment and...

This data spotlight examines trends in benefits and cost-sharing for Medicare Advantage plans in 2010, including the wide variations found across plans and the rapid increase in cost sharing requirements for some benefits, including stays in skilled nursing facilities. It also examines the...

This spotlight examines enrollment trends in Medicare Advantage plans, including health maintenance organizations (HMOs), preferred provider organizations (PPOs), and private fee-for-service (PFFS) plans. Despite the availability of many private Medicare Advantage plans, enrollment is highly...

The issue of risk selection is especially important for states that enroll blind and disabled beneficiaries of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) in Medicaid managed care. SSI beneficiaries have persistent needs for care, have a wide variety of chronic conditions, and often need atypical and...

Recent studies have examined Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) national participation rates as well as participation rates for socioeconomic and demographic subgroups. This document presents estimates of SNAP participation rates for all eligible people and for the working poor, by...

In recent years we have seen an increase in the amount of statistics in society describing different phenomena based on so called Big Data. The term Big Data is used for a variety of data as explained in the report, many of them characterized not just by their large volume, but also by their...