Health Policy
September 17, 2012 | Feature/Topic
Browse research, insight and analysis on key issues affecting health and health care in the United States.
The Urban Institute produces a series of quick-strike issue briefs on health care coverage and quality issues in the United States. Browse the series below.
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How Will Comparative Effectiveness Research Affect the Quality of Health Care?
February 1, 2010 | Issue Brief
Paper explores the potential impact of comparative effectiveness research and looks at implications for quality of care and health outcomes.
How Does the Quality of U.S. Health Care Compare Internationally?
August 1, 2009 | Issue Brief
This analysis from the Urban Institute looks at the evidence on how quality of care in the United States compares to that in other countries and the implications for health reform.
Can Accountable Care Organizations Improve the Value of Health Care by Solving the Cost and Quality Quandaries?
October 29, 2009 | Issue Brief
Researchers from the Urban Institute look at the design of accountable care organizations and their opportunities and challenges.
Protecting High-Risk, High-Cost Patients
June 1, 2012 | Issue Brief
There is little question that the ACA will improve the nongroup and small group insurance markets for everyone in them, including the high-risk population. Yet insurance market reforms, guided by requirements for EHBs, AVs, and other tools provided by the ACA, are and will remain a work in progress.
Churning Under the ACA and State Policy Options for Mitigation
June 1, 2012 | Issue Brief
To lessen the damage done by churning, it will be important for states to provide consumers with intensive assistance to help them navigate through the involuntary coverage transitions.
Will Health Reform Lead to Job Loss?
June 1, 2012 | Issue Brief
This brief, prepared by the Urban Institute on behalf of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, examines employment trends in Massachusetts as the state implemented health reform between 2006 and 2010.
The Value of Clinical Practice Guidelines as Malpractice "Safe Harbors"
April 1, 2012 | Issue Brief
This paper from the Urban Institute discusses the promise of clinical practice guidelines as medical liability "safe harbors." The paper examines how guidelines can protect providers, how they would prevent defensive medicine, and challenges and hurdles in designing and applying such guidelines.
The Individual Mandate in Perspective
March 1, 2012 | Issue Brief
The “individual mandate”—the requirement that individuals either have health insurance coverage or pay a fine—is both the best known and the least popular component of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). If the ACA were in effect today, 94 percent of the ...
Uninsured Veterans and Family Members
May 1, 2012 | Report
One in 10 of the nation's 12.5 million nonelderly veterans report either not having health insurance coverage or using VA health care.
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation
February 1, 2012 | Issue Brief
This summary paper provides a status report on the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. Congress established the Innovation Center in the ACA primarily to test new payment and delivery models.