This report examines existing data and research to comprehensively describe the scope and prevalence of obesity and available obesity treatments in the US covered by fee-for-service Medicaid, Medicaid managed care, state employee health plans, and state essential health benefits benchmark plans.


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This brief explores how nearly 13 million adults delayed or did not get needed prescription drugs in the past year because of the cost, including 2.3 million elderly Medicare beneficiaries and 3.8 million nonelderly adults with private insurance, 1.1 million with Medicaid, and 4.1 million who were uninsured at any point during the year.

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This report documents access and affordability challenges facing uninsured new mothers using 2015–18 data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). It also uses 2015–17 data from the Pregnancy Risk Assessment and Monitoring System (PRAMS) to describe the health status of women who lost Medicaid coverage following their pregnancies.

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This report investigates the work patterns of Medicaid beneficiaries in Kentucky who are are potentially subject to Medicaid work requirements. It finds that the structure of Kentucky’s Medicaid waiver does not seem to align with the reality of some working enrollees’ lives, and that working enrollees losing coverage may not have access to an employer plan.

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The ACA has made considerable gains in health insurance coverage, but many remain uninsured. This is an update to a 2015 analysis of the characteristics of the remaining uninsured, focusing on people uninsured in 2017 as well as how the characteristics of this population have changed.

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To understand the marketplace enrollment gains and losses observed in 2018 relative to 2017, the Urban Institute interviewed key stakeholders in Rhode Island, Washington, and New York, which saw marketplace enrollment increases, and in West Virginia and Louisiana, which saw enrollment drops. This report explains the different features of the five states, presents cross-state findings, and discusses important factors in next year’s open enrollment period.

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We assessed rates of employer health insurance offer, take-up, and coverage in June 2013 and March 2017 among workers. Overall, offer rates remained stable, and take-up and coverage rates increased. In Medicaid expansion states, the share of workers with family incomes at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level who had employer-based coverage held steady, while uninsurance rates declined.

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In this brief, we provide an overview of the lessons learned from work requirements for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, or cash assistance) and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly Food Stamps) and discuss the implications of introducing or expanding work requirements.

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The Affordable Care Act (ACA) made private nongroup health insurance more accessible to nonelderly adults with chronic conditions through the federal and state-based Marketplaces. As repeal of the ACA individual mandate takes effect in 2019, protecting coverage gains while stabilizing nongroup premiums may depend on state-level efforts to spread the risk of enrollees’ health care costs across a balanced insurance pool.

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The Profile of Virginia’s Uninsured provides a detailed picture of the Commonwealth’s uninsured using the 2016 American Community Survey. In 2016, 10.3 percent of Virginians under age 65 were uninsured. Most of these uninsured nonelderly Virginians had family incomes at or below 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL), and more than three-quarters were part of working families.

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Although congressional efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) did not succeed in 2017, the law continues to face an uncertain future. This brief examines insurers’ participation and pricing decisions for the 2018 and 2019 plan years through structured interviews with 10 insurance companies participating in the individual market in 28 states and the District of Columbia.

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On February 20, 2018, the Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services released a proposed regulation that would increase the maximum length of short-term, limited-duration insurance policies to one year. The brief analyzes the national and state-specific effects of ending the individual mandate and loosening limits on short-term, limited-duration policies.

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In January 2018, CMS approved Kentucky’s Section 1115 Medicaid demonstration waiver, which allows the state to require some beneficiaries to participate in “community engagement” activities for at least 80 hours a month to retain their Medicaid coverage. This brief revises an earlier analysis on who could be affected by Kentucky’s Medicaid work requirements based on new information posted on Kentucky’s website.

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