The United States is facing a severe shortage of psychiatrists. In 2018, 77% of counties in the United States reported a severe deficit of psychiatrists, while an estimated 60% of adults with mental illness were not able to receive treatment. This lack of serv... More »
Public health officials have long sought to improve health outcomes by influencing bad behaviors, like smoking or lack of exercise. Such behaviors are very clearly detrimental to health, so much so that it seems like no one would perform them—but people inevit... More »
Since 2000, the Chicago area has witnessed 20 hospital closures, a loss of nearly a quarter of the city’s hospitals. In the past three years alone, there were four scheduled hospital closures in the South and West sides, though one—Mercy Hospital—was saved at ... More »
Approximately one in twenty adults in the US suffer from a serious mental illness (SMI) such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or major depressive disorder. Yet barriers to accessing behavioral health services, including mental health care and substance use ... More »
Medicaid continues to constitute a key component of the safety net for low-income households, covering more than 76 million Americans in 2016. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), 37 states expanded Medicaid to cover adults with incomes up to 138 percent of th... More »
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) is an independent division of HHS charged with protecting the integrity of HHS programs and the health and welfare of HHS program beneficiaries. The OIG is a nonpartisan “... More »
Kathleen Sebelius served as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2009 to 2014, where she was instrumental in the rollout of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Prior to her service in the federal government, she served as Governor of Kansas from 2003 to... More »
The welfare migration hypothesis proposes the idea that people will move to a location because of the availability of social welfare programs. Frequently studied in international development, it is equally applicable to internal migration in the United States ... More »
In 2009, when President Obama placed healthcare at the top of his agenda, the weight of healthcare costs on individuals was a driving media narrative. Stories about families losing their homes to pay for cancer treatments added a human face to the fact that me... More »
Understanding how elderly individuals ultimately rely on Medicaid could be key to implementing changes that protect the fiscal longevity of both Medicaid and Medicare. More »
A new study finds that expanding Medicaid has significant positive effects for patients, but whether it happens via traditional Medicaid or private Marketplaces does not make much of a difference. More »
A new study finds that high-cost Medicare beneficiaries are more likely to switch from private Medicare Advantage plans to original Medicare plans. More »