The need for hospital beds could overwhelm national capacity as the COVID-19 outbreak expands. An interactive county-level map shows which parts of the United States have the most and fewest available hospital beds. Hover over your county to see its total number of hospital beds as of 2018. A more detailed analysis can be found here.
A public insurance plan option would be structured to be the same as private insurance plans, but it would also share some characteristics with the traditional Medicare fee-for-service plan. A new report (PDF) and brief
(PDF) present an array of public option approaches and their implications for health care spending and coverage.
Despite significant declines in uninsurance under the Affordable Care Act, a new study found no increase in prescription contraception use for white or Hispanic women. The study also found that the decrease in uninsurance among Black women did not fully explain their large increase in prescription contraception use.
By taking aggressive advantage of the flexibility permitted by Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) statutes, policymakers can help people obtain, retain, and make optimal use of critical health coverage that can help them weather the pandemic.
The costs of COVID-19 treatment may be of particular concern for the uninsured, but depending on their plan, people with employer-sponsored insurance may also face high financial burdens.
Despite the nation being at the tail end of its longest economic expansion on record, many hourly and self-employed workers were already struggling to meet basic needs before the outbreak.
Without a health insurance safety net, job loss will leave many families in states that have not expanded Medicaid eligibility under the ACA with no affordable or accessible insurance options. A new brief explores the potential for the 15 states that have not yet expanded to make it happen now.
