Date Published: 5/1/2013

Description: Chronic diseases account for 75 percent of annual health care spending in the U.S.  Because many chronic conditions are preventable, states are turning to federal Community Transformation Grants to help keep people healthier.

Date Published: 4/1/2013

Description: U.S. military veterans often complete service only to discover they cannot find jobs when they return home.  While states face shortages in the health care workforce, many veterans with medical training remain unemployed.

Date Published: 3/1/2013

Description: States are constitutionally required and court ordered to provide adequate medical care for inmates.  To stem the tide of correctional health care spending, states are adopting various policy reforms to both reduce costs and ensure quality.

Date Published: 3/1/2013

Description: Dental disease is preventable, yet dental care is the most common unmet health treatment need in children.  Various policy options and initiatives may improve access to dental care, although views differ about the best approaches.

Date Published: 2/4/2013

Description: With provisions of the ACA moving forward, states face fast-approaching deadlines. Insurance exchanges will soon start enrolling people and insurance plans must comply with additional requirements. State legislators face decisions about expanding Medicaid eligibility. Explore these topics as well as provisions designed to address workforce readiness, rising costs and prevention and wellness.

Date Published: 2/1/2013

Description: The ACA expanded Medicaid, but the June 2012 Supreme Court ruling effectively made this expansion optional for states.  Learn how states are dealing with issues related to the act, and hear about state innovations aimed at improving the value of Medicaid for both the taxpayer and beneficiaries.

Date Published: 2/1/2013

Description: Fraud, waste and abuse in the Medicaid program divert taxpayer dollars that otherwise would be spent on legitimate health care.  In order to ensure proper expenditure of public funds, states are at the forefront of preventing, detecting and deterring improper practices and payments.

Date Published: 1/1/2013

Description: Doctors and mental health professionals are responsible for maintaining confidentiality of patient information based on the ethical standards of their profession.  In an effort to protect potential victims from a patient’s violent behavior, however, many states have passed "duty to warn" laws.  These laws impose a duty on psychotherapists to warn third parties of potential threats to their safety.

Date Published: 1/1/2013

Description: Scientists are turning numbers into maps in order to tackle one of the most complicated issues in health care: cost control.  After identifying geographic concentrations where health costs are high, analysts, health care professionals and government officials work to determine why they exist and how to eliminate or diminish them.

Date Published: 1/1/2013

Description: A lack of savings can result in financial hardship for families that face sudden crises such as a job loss.  Individual development accounts and other asset building strategies encourage families to establish savings and accumulate assets, in addition to income, to gain economic stability so that they are better able to weather financial setbacks.