Awarded Grants

The investigators will conduct a comprehensive evaluation of the Vermont health reform initiative to provide universal access to comprehensive, affordable health insurance coverage and, ultimately, access to quality health care. Primary and secondary data sets (primarily the 2005 Vermont Household Health Insurance Survey and CPS) will be analyzed to assess the impact of the reform on public, private, and self-insured coverage options, enrollment, premiums and other out-of-pocket costs, utilization indicators, program implementation administrative costs, and related measures.

This study will examine the effects of reform efforts in Illinois, Massachusetts and New York. In particular, it will assess impacts on coverage, access to and use of care, and out-of-pocket (OOP) health costs using National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) data. The impact analyses will take advantage of the “natural experiment” that occurred in the three states to compare outcomes (insurance status, access and use, and OOP costs) for the target populations in each state before and after policy changes.
 

This study will focus on Massachusetts’ use of Uncompensated Care Pool data to auto enroll people into CommCare. The study will use CPS data, encounter data and a supplement to the Massachusetts Health Reform Survey (MHRS) to assess take-up rates, savings to administrative costs and utilization. In addition, the study will be supplemented by qualitative interviews.
 

This study will evaluate Medicaid reform initiatives in Kentucky and Idaho that offer different benefit plans to different beneficiary populations and impose cost sharing requirements. Both programs have a goal of reducing program costs, while maintaining access and quality. The research objectives are to understand the administration of the plans, their impact on beneficiary access to timely and appropriate care, to assess their impact on program costs, and to identify the effects of particular aspects of the reforms.

 
This study will examine the New Mexico State Coverage Insurance (SCI) program that targets working age adults through a public/private partnership program. The principal objective of the study is to identify factors that have influenced employer participation in New Mexico’s SCI program. Data will include state administrative data on enrollment into SCI, a survey of participating employers and non-participating employers who inquired about SCI, and employed individuals who enrolled with no employer sponsorship.

This study will address the problem of California’s uninsured children that are eligible but not enrolled in public programs. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of outreach and enrollment strategies, particularly technology-based interventions. Data sources will be enrollment data, California Health Interview Survey data, and data on outreach and enrollment strategies collected through bi-annual surveys.

 
This study will evaluate the program simplification initiatives that were part of BadgerCare Plus and how they affect enrollment, including overall coverage rates and target efficiency, churning, and program sustainability. The study will use the Wisconsin Family Health Survey, ACCESS usage reports, the County Income Maintenance workload model and interviews with enrolled members, providers, advocacy groups, employers, and program administrators.

 
This study assesses whether instituting 12-month continuous eligibility directly benefited California’s children enrolled in Medi-Cal by improving their health care utilization outcomes, specifically increasing their rates of well-child visits and decreasing avoidable emergency department and hospital visits. This study will assess whether 12-month continuous eligibility improves health utilization outcomes by analyzing Medi-Cal administrative data.