House Health Reform Bill Would Help Ensure Affordable, Quality Coverage for Older Adults Aged 55-64
End Notes
[1] For an overall analysis of the House health reform bill, see Edwin Park, Judith Solomon, Paul Van de Water, Sarah Lueck and January Angeles, “House Health Reform Bill Expands Coverage and Lowers Health Cost Growth, While Reducing Deficits,” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, October 31, 2009.
[2] Congressional Budget Office, “Letter to the Honorable Charles B. Rangel,” October 29, 2009. The 96 percent coverage figure excludes non-elderly undocumented immigrants.
[3] Gretchen Jacobson, Karyn Schwartz, and Tricia Neuman, “Health Insurance Coverage for Older Adults: Implications of a Medicare Buy-In,” Kaiser Family Foundation, May 2009.
[4] Jacobsen, Schwartz, and Neuman, op cit.
[5] Gerry Smolka and Sarah Thomas, “A Medicare Buy-In Program,” AARP Public Policy Institute, June 2009.
[6] Jacobsen, Schwartz, and Neuman, op cit.
[7] J. Michael McWilliams, Ellen Meara, Alan Zaslavsky, and John Ayanian, “Use of Health Services by Previously Uninsured Medicare Beneficiaries,” New England Journal of Medicine, July 12, 2007.
[8] Center for Policy and Research, America’s Health Insurance Plans, “Individual Health Insurance 2006-2007: A Comprehensive Survey of Premiums, Availability and Benefits,” December 2007.
[9] Older adults are defined more broadly by the Commonwealth Fund study as including adults ages 50-70. Sara Collins, Cathy Schoen, Michelle Doty, Alyssa Holmgren, and Sabrina How, “Paying More for Less: Older Adults in the Individual Insurance Market,” The Commonwealth Fund, June 2005. See also Elisabeth Simantov, Cathy Schoen, and Stephanie Bruegman, “Market Failure? Individual Insurance Markets for Older Americans,” Health Affairs, July/August 2001.
[10] Jacobsen, Schwartz, and Neuman, op cit.
[11] The Commonwealth Fund defines people as “underinsured” if their out-of-pocket medical expenses (excluding premiums) equal 10 percent or more of income, their out-of-pocket medical expenses equal 5 percent or more of income if they have incomes below 200 percent of the poverty line, or their deductibles equal 5 percent or more of their income.
[12] Collins, Schoen, Doty, Holmgren, and How, op cit.
[13] Jacobsen, Schwartz, and Neuman, op cit.
[14] Donna Cohen Ross and Caryn Marks, “Challenges of Providing Health Coverage for Parents and Children in a Recession: A 50 State Update on Eligibility Rules, Enrollment and Renewal Procedures, and Cost-Sharing Practices in Medicaid and SCHIP in 2009,” Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, January 2009.
[15] CBPP analysis of the 2009 Current Population Survey.