Data Dive
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- Health Policy
2020 MLR Rebates by State
based on MLR reports filed through Oct. 21, 2021. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a report…
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- Health Policy
ACOs earned nearly $2.3 billion in Medicare shared savings in 2020
More than two-thirds of accountable care organizations in the Medicare Shared Savings Program earned shared savings in 2020, according to…
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- Health Policy
Aligning Payments, Services, and Quality in Primary Care
This report in JAMA describes what the authors said is an optimal payment model for primary care. In May 2021,…
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- Health Policy
All-Time High: 13.6 Million People Signed Up for Health Coverage on the ACA Insurance Marketplaces
On Dec 22, 2021, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reported that a record 13.6 million were enrolled…
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- Health Policy
CMS Chronic Conditions Dashboard
This lets you compile data on prevalence of 15 common chronic conditions – including depression — how much they costs,…
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- Health Policy
CMS DataNavigator
While the AHCJ website has data available on Medicare and Medicare, here’s a menu-driven search tool that can help you…
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- Health Policy
CMS Releases County-Level Marketplace Data
CMS has released new information on Qualified Health Plan selections by county for the 37 states that use the HealthCare.gov platform (including…
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- Health Policy
Community Health Data Initiative
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Institute of Medicine launched this initiative to help consumers and…
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- Health Policy
Community health status & Medicare
The Health Indicators Warehouse, was updated this fall. It now includes 174 CMS indicators with data from 2007-10 focusing on…
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- Health Policy
Comparing U.S. health care system with other countries
The OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) maintains a database that enables comparisons between the U.S. and other developed countries on…
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- Health Policy
County health rankings
A collaboration between the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, this is a rich source…
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- Health Policy
Data files from the National Center for Health Statistics
The National Center for Health Statistics offers downloadable public-use data files through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s FTP…
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- Health Policy
Domestic Reference Pricing and Its Potential Role in Medicare Pharmaceutical Price Negotiations
In 2021, members of Congress considered a proposal to let Medicare negotiate lower drug prices with pharmaceutical makers. One way…
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- Health Policy
Effects of Selected Major Tax Expenditures from 2013 to 2022
Sometimes during debates over health policy you hear the term “tax exclusion.” That’s referring to the tax breaks for health…
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- Health Policy
Employee benefits
EBRI (the Employer Benefit Research Institute) puts out data briefs ad summaries, but they often contain links to government databases…
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- Health Policy
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- Insurance
Employers pay 254% more for hospital care than Medicare, report says
By Joseph Burns One reason health care costs are so high in the United States is that employers pay a…
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- Health Policy
Essential health benefits
In 2014, all health plans, in and out of the exchanges, will have to offer “essential benefits,” or a minimal,…
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- Health Policy
Evaluate the quality of hospitals in your area
State-by-state breakdown of how patients rate hospitals, according to the HHS Hospital Consumer Assessment of Health Providers and Systems Graphic…
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- Health Policy
Excel tutorial Intro to investigating health data using spreadsheets
This tutorial will give you a jumpstart on using spreadsheets to investigate health data. While it’s important to remember that…
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- Health Policy
Federal report shows health spending rose to $4.5 trillion in 2022
Spending for health care in the United States rose to $4.5 trillion in 2022, an increase of 4.1% over spending…
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- Health Policy
Finding patterns and trends in health data: Pivot tables in spreadsheets
Excel pivot tables are a powerful way to organize, interpret and manipulate numerical data. In this tip sheet, reporters will…
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- Health Policy
Guroo.com
This is a new free and pretty user friendly source of price information based on an extensive (billions) set of insurance claims…
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- Health Policy
Health care costs
We often try to provide databases that you can download. While this doesn’t quite fall into that category, The Wall…
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- Health Policy
Health care expenditures and utilization
The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality offers data about medical expenditures, health care costs and utilization, broken down by…
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- Health Policy
Health Insurance Exchange (HIX) Compare
This dataset, available from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation,provides information on benefit design and cost sharing for health plans offered in all 50…
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- Health Policy
Health of minority populations
The ACA requires federal health data collection and analysis, including demographic data aimed at better understanding disparities. The HHS Office…
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- Health Policy
Higher and Faster-Growing Spending Per Medicare Advantage Enrollee Adds to Medicare’s Solvency and Affordability Challenges
Medicare spending was $321 per-person higher in 2019 and growing faster per person for beneficiaries in Medicare Advantage (MA) than…
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- Health Policy
HIX Compare datasets examine every marketplace plan from 2015 to 2016
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has created free, machine-readable data files on all ACA plans for 2015 and 2016 – on and…
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- Health Policy
Hospital readmission rates
In April 2013, the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality released updated data on 30-day hospital readmission rates for…
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- Health Policy
How health IT is changing health care
The Office of National Coordinator for Health IT has databases about providers and use of technology and public health measures.
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- Health Policy
How HHS Can Lower Drug Prices, Strengthen Domestic Manufacturing and Reduce Government Spending on Prescription Drugs
The American Economic Liberties Project wrote to HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to outline four ways HHS could lower drug costs:…
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- Health Policy
Improving hospital quality
Health reform includes lots of initiatives to improve hospital quality and bring down Medicare costs. Here’s one area that some…
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- Health Policy
Inpatient and outpatient services, utilization and cost
CMS has released a lot of data on inpatient and outpatient services, utilization and cost. Here are some links to…
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- Health Policy
Leapfrog Group for Patient Safety
This is a group backed by large employers that gathers safety and quality data (from voluntary surveys) and uses it…
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- Health Policy
Local Health
Localhealthdata.org (via Washington University’s Health Communication Research Laboratory). This includes U.S. government health data, data from numerous health organizations (i.e.…
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- Health Policy
Marketplace utilization
CMS has released Health Insurance Marketplace Public Use files giving detailed information about the marketplace: Qualified health plan -eligible, remaining uninsured population ranked by…
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- Health Policy
Medicaid cuts will cost hospitals billions in lost revenue annually, reports show
The budget reconciliation bill President Trump signed into law on July 4 will devastate the finances of hospitals nationwide, particularly…
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- Health Policy
Medicaid Expansion Reduced Uninsured Surgical Hospitalizations and Associated Catastrophic Financial Burden
Expanding eligibility for Medicaid in the states was associated with reductions in the share (6.2%) and the population rate (7.85…
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- Health Policy
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- Insurance
Medicaid sent health insurers $4 billion in extra payments, WSJ reports
From 2019 through 2021, the federal Medicaid program paid at least $4.3 billion for patients who were enrolled in two…
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- Health Policy
Medicare agency redesigns direct contracting program
in favor of accountable care organizations. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said on Feb. 24 that it…
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- Health Policy
Medicare Beneficiaries’ Use of Telehealth in 2020
Report examining changes in Medicare beneficiaries’ use of telehealth in 2020 during the COVID-19 public health emergency. In-person visits dropped…
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- Health Policy
Medicare Geographic Variation
CMS has posted its Geographic Variation Public Use File covering 2007-16, which reports on demographic, spending, utilization, and quality indicators for Medicare…
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- Health Policy
Medicare/Medicaid
HHS provides a CMS resource on historic, current, and projected data on Medicare and Medicaid – enrollment, spending, use. It…
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- Health Policy
Misleading Marketing of Non-ACA Health Plans Continued During COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period
Journalists reporting on open enrollment for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) should warn consumers that during the ACA’s special enrollment…
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- Health Policy
More African Americans have gained health insurance
since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became effective in 2014, and the percentage of African Americans who have no health…
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- Health Policy
More Than 80% Remain Uninsured Following Pandemic Layoffs
A report in November 2021 published on AffordableHealthInsurance.com, a site that helps consumers enroll in health care coverage, showed that…
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- Health Policy
NAIC Insurance Data
The NAIC offers publicly available data in PDF form on insurers’ financial performance.
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- Health Policy
National Healthcare Quality and Disparities Reports
In August 2021, the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) published its 17th annual report on trends related…
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- Health Policy
Nationwide data on Hospital-Associated Infections (HAIs)
Most US hospitals will never see a case of Ebola, but they face other more common – and potentially lethal…
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- Health Policy
New data shows medical debt disproportionately affects the most vulnerable populations.
Click here to view the latest data. A report from the Georgetown University Center for Health Insurance Reform shows that…
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- Health Policy
Nonprofit hospitals’ IRS 990s
One little-known element of the health care reform law sets new rules for nonprofits. They are required to assess community…
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- Health Policy
Out-of-Pocket Costs of Diagnostic Breast Imaging Services After Screening Mammography Among Commercially Insured Women From 2010 to 2017
The ACA largely eliminated out of pocket costs (OOPCs) for screening mammography, but researchers found that among commercially insured women…
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- Health Policy
Patterns of Use of a Price Transparency Tool for Childbirth Among Pregnant Individuals With Commercial Insurance
For a study published in JAMA Network Open in August 2021, researchers collected information on 253,606 pregnant people, of whom…
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- Health Policy
POS (Provider of Service)
This POS (Provider of Service) file contains data on health care providers that take part in Medicare, and what services they provide. …
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- Health Policy
Potential Roe v. Wade decision highlights wide variation in regulations regarding health coverage of abortion
A report from healthinsurance.org shows that the Affordable Care Act did not mandate or ban health insurance coverage for abortion.…
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- Health Policy
Private Health Coverage: Results of Covert Testing for Selected Sales Representatives Listed on Healthcare.gov
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in August 2021 that sales representatives listed on the federal healthcare.gov website can sell…
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- Health Policy
Rate reviews
The Affordable Care Act expands review of proposed insurance premium increases – but does not allow Washington to reject increases.…
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- Health Policy
Readmissions Reduction Program
CMS has published updated data about hospital readmission rates. Under the ACA, hospitals with high rates of 30-day readmissions for Medicare patients…
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- Health Policy
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- Insurance
Report highlights depth and breadth of medical debt, affecting millions
By Joseph Burns | Updated Sept. 3, 2025 Tens of millions of Americans carry some level of medical debt, contributing…
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- Health Policy
Report: Hospital mergers lead to higher prices, unemployment and deaths
By Joseph Burns New research shows how hospital mergers have troubling effects that ripple through local communities. After mergers, hospitals…
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- Aging
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- Health Policy
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- Insurance
Report: When facing high prescription drug costs, many seniors skip doses
Almost all older adults (88.6%) take prescription medications and 82.7% of all seniors aged 65 and older have prescription drug…
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- Health Policy
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- Insurance
Reports show record high enrollment in ACA health plans
In January, preliminary data showed the Affordable Care Act marketplaces had record-high enrollment for the fourth straight year, Jared Ortaliza…
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- Health Policy
Rural Health Information Hub
The Rural Health Information Hub has data sets and chart visualizations on health status, disparities, workforce and access
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- Health Policy
Rural hospital closures
The Sheps Center at the University of North Carolina has data and tracking tools for rural hospital closures by state.
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- Health Policy
Rural-Urban Health Chartbook
See appendix for information about the underlying data sets.
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- Health Policy
RWJF Data Hub
This is a user friendly RWJF data hub that you can explore and customize under the following six areas: Covering…
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- Health Policy
Scope of Practice and Medicaid: State Flexibility to Cover Advanced Practice Care
Click here to view the latest data. A report issued in May 2022 from the National Health Law Program explains…
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- Health Policy
Scorecards
The Commonwealth Fund’s Health System Data Center breaks down lots of state and local data, and includes searchable data on…
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- Health Policy
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- Insurance
Senate report exposes flawed and costly Medicare Advantage marketing practices
Medicare Advantage plans have engaged in marketing practices that rely on third-party marketers and other organizations that inflate costs for…
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- Health Policy
Small business tax credit
The Affordable Care Act provides a temporary tax credit for small employers – defined as having 25 full-time workers or…
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- Health Policy
Small Share of Medicare Supplement Plans Offer Access to Dental, Vision, and Other Benefits Not Covered by Traditional Medicare
Researchers for The Commonwealth Fund found that a small and declining share (7%) of Medicare Supplement plans (also known as…
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- Health Policy
State Exchange Markets
The State Exchange Markets tool, from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, has a preliminary summary of policies and data collected from…
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- Health Policy
Study shows having medical debt in U.S. leads to poor health and premature death
March 4, 2024 Findings from a recent study suggest that when U.S. consumers have medical debt in collections, they are…
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- Health Policy
Tax provisions of the ACA (January 2018)
This IRS page has links to data related to the tax provisions of the ACA for individuals, businesses, government and insurers.
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- Health Policy
The first public option health plan struggles to gain traction
As prospects decline for a single-payer Medicare for All program, health reform advocates turned to a government-designed insurance plan that…
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- Health Policy
The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic and Recent Federal Policies on Small Business Health Insurance
Contrary to some predictions, small businesses’ health coverage offerings remained relatively stable during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report…
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- Health Policy
The Poorest Children Lost Health Insurance During The Pandemic
In this report, researchers noted a flaw in a federal report on health insurance in 2020 from the U.S. Census…
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- Health Policy
The RWJF DataHub
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s DataHub tracks state-level data and allows users to customize and visualize facts and figures on…
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- Health Policy
The Shorenstein Center’s guide to health and science databases
The Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School has assembled a guide to databases, with…
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- Health Policy
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a civil lawsuit on Feb. 24
along with the Minnesota and New York Attorneys General to stop UnitedHealth Group’s plan to acquire Change Healthcare, a revenue…
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- Health Policy
Tracking Americans’ experiences in the health insurance marketplaces
The Commonwealth Fund has developed an interactive data set based on its research about people shopping for health coverage in the exchanges.
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- Health Policy
Trends in Insurance Coverage, Source of Private Coverage Among Young Adults
This report shows that, since September 2010 – when adults aged 19–25 were able to obtain dependent private health insurance…
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- Health Policy
U.S. Out-of-Pocket Healthcare Spending Swells To $491 Billion, Up 10%
Consumer spending for out-of-pocket (OOP) health care costs will rise to an estimated $491.6 billion in 2021, a 10% increase…
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- Health Policy
Unvaccinated COVID-19 hospitalizations cost the U.S. health system billions of dollars
Preventable hospitalizations for unvaccinated patients cost $2.3 billion in only two months: June and July 2021, according to data from…
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- Health Policy
Updated ACA Health Insurance Marketplace Subsidy Calculator
In October 2021, KFF published a revised ACA Health Insurance Marketplace Calculator to help consumers understand how much they would…
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- Health Policy
Updated hospital data allows reporters to identify ongoing problems
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has been reporting patient survival rates for hospitals across the United States for…
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- Health Policy
Use data to cover the Affordable Care Act
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has six databases on its “Reform by the Numbers” website that can be useful for…
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- Health Policy
Utilization of products, services by Medicare beneficiaries
CMS has released a data set on Provider Utilization and Payment Data: Referring Durable Medical Equipment, Prosthetics, Orthotics and Supplies (DMEPOS) Public…
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- Health Policy
Who Went Without Health Insurance in 2019, and Why?
In 2019, about 12% of the U.S. population under age 65 (about 30 million Americans) were not enrolled in a…
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- Health Policy
Workforce
According to the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, fewer than one out of three physicians in direct patient…
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