Friday, December 19, 2003

The Uninsured and Their Access to Health CareFact sheet (in Adobe Acrobat format) from the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured - "While nearly two-thirds of nonelderly Americans receive health insurance coverage through their employers and almost all the elderly are covered through Medicare, 43.3 million Americans lacked health insurance in 2002. Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) play an important role by covering millions of nonelderly lowincome people, especially children. However, limits to these public programs and gaps in employer coverage leave millions of nonelderly Americans uninsured – creating substantial barriers to obtaining timely and appropriate health care..."  
  

What's Next for Managed Mental Health?Article by Leonard Holmes at About Mental Health - " Managed care has dramatically changed mental health care in the United States. Paperwork has skyrocketed as clinicians are required to fill out detailed forms to request additional sessions. "Behavioral healthcare" companies have been born as mental health care has been "carved-out" of insurance plans to be managed separately. What's in store for the future? As research continues to blur the distinction between mind and body the current system begs for change. Some believe that current trends - including the push toward parity legislation - will result in mental health benefits being reunited with (or "carved-in" to) benefits for physical health. ... Patients with co-occurring mental and physical disorders are poorly treated under the current system. .."