Under current law, national health expenditures are projected to grow at an average annual rate of 5.6 percent for 2016-25 and represent 19.9 percent of gross domestic product by 2025. For 2016, national health expenditure growth is anticipated to have slowed 1.1 percentage points to 4.8 percent, as a result of slower Medicaid and prescription drug spending growth. For the rest of the projectio...

Many U.S. military veterans lack health insurance and are ineligible for care in Veterans Administration health care facilities. Using two recently released national government surveys--the 2004 Current Population Survey and the 2002 National Health Interview Survey--the authors examined how many veterans are uninsured (lacking health insurance coverage and not receiving care from the VA) and w...

Recent protest movements brought attention to the one percent, a segment of the population that is critical to understanding inequality and social mobility but that attracts relatively little research attention. In this article, I survey current research on the one percent in the United States. I distinguish income from wealth and show that both are very concentrated but that the concentration ...

PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR HEALTH REFORM: Findings from the 2009 Health Confidence Survey--the 12th annual HCS--indicate that Americans have already formed strong opinions regarding various aspects of health reform, even before details have been released regarding various key factors. These issues include health insurance market reform, the availability of a public plan option, mandates on employers an...

OBJECTIVES This report presents long-term trends in the number and percentage of persons under age 65 years with different types of health insurance coverage and with no coverage. It documents changes in how the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) has collected information about coverage over almost 50 years. It also compares recent trends in coverage estimates based on the NHIS and the U.S...

Based on national surveys of employers from 1988 through 2001 and recent key-informant interviews, this paper examines trends in employer-based retiree health benefits. We assess trends in the availability of coverage to early and Medicare-eligible retirees, the cost of coverage, plan choice and enrollment, prescription drug coverage, and recent changes in plan design. During a period of low he...