The Latest Research, Commentary, And News From Health Affairs
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Dear John,
Health Affairs has published results from the 2021 Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Health Benefits Survey.
KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey Results
In an ahead-of-print article released today, Gary Claxton and coauthors present findings from the twenty-third annual Kaiser Family Foundation Employer Health Benefits Survey. The survey asked firms about eligibility for and enrollment in their health benefits programs, as well as the characteristics of their largest health plans.
One of the biggest takeaways from this year’s results: "Despite pandemic uncertainties in the labor market and health care use, employer health benefit programs have not experienced big changes."
In 2021 the average annual premium for single coverage for workers covered by their own firms increased 4 percent,
the same percentage increase as in 2020. Also, preferred provider organization (PPO) plans remained the most common plan type in 2021, with 46 percent of covered workers enrolled in a PPO.
To the researchers’ surprise, 2021 "saw a very large increase in the share of small firms that said that their largest plan type was level-funded, from 13 percent in 2020 to 42 percent this year."
Today on Health Affairs Blog, Michael Gluck discusses how health technology assessment intersects with major challenges facing US health care.
Mandar Bodas and coauthors discuss how states’ use of American Rescue Plan Act funds reflect the need to stabilize the direct care workforce
and the role of compensation in doing so.
In a GrantWatch post, Kenneth Shatzkes and Karen Scott at a national foundation describe how some of its grantees continue to work to increase the number of clinicians prescribing buprenorphine, a lifesaving treatment for opioid use disorder.
Lori Frank and Thomas Concannon discuss the opportunity to address health technology assessments’ White medical culture with a more diverse and inclusionary involvement of patients.
Elevating Voices: Native American Heritage Month: A 2021 Leading To Health column highlighted the University of North Dakota, which launched the country’s first Ph.D. program in Indigenous health in 2020—the latest in a long line of efforts to increase American Indian representation in health care.
In the piece, Siobhan Wescott, the program’s assistant director, says, "It’s clear from the numbers that the pathways to medicine aren’t serving our population."
Health Affairs Today will be dark for Veterans Day tomorrow but back in your inbox on Friday.
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Health Affairs Editor-in-Chief Alan Weil welcomes Michelle McMurry-Heath, president and CEO of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), for a discussion of current topics in pharmaceuticals including, but not limited to, reducing barriers to vaccines and other lifesaving technologies, and policy relating to generics, patents, and prices.
Date: Friday, November 12, 2021 Time: 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. (ET) Place: Online details
to be shared upon registration
Please email your questions in advance to [email protected] and we will make every effort, in the limited time available,
to have them addressed. First priority will be given to topics relevant to the widest swath of the audience.
Health Affairs is the leading peer-reviewedjournalat the intersection of health, health care, and policy. Published monthly by Project HOPE, the journal is available in print and online. Late-breaking content is also found through healthaffairs.org, Health Affairs Today, and Health Affairs Sunday Update.
Project HOPE is a global health and humanitarian relief organization that places power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe. Project HOPE has published Health Affairs since 1981.
