Research Library

Despite the wealth of evidence attesting to the efficacy of medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction, the majority of Americans who need it can't get it — including in Harris County, Texas’ largest county. Baker Institute Blog: https://bit.ly/31D9qGV

By Eugene Lin, Matthew W. Mell, Wolfgang C. Winkelmayer and Kevin F. Erickson U.S. patients without Medicare who develop end-stage kidney disease become Medicare eligible by their fourth dialysis month. This delay in insurance coverage can lead to disparities in health care that may not fully correct over time, write the authors in the Clinical Journal of American Society of Nephrology: https://bit.ly/2SEW20u

In a new survey, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Episcopal Health Foundation sought to gauge Texans’ views on health policy priorities at both the state and national level. Overall, the survey finds that health care is a priority for Texans, with over half saying the state legislature should increase spending on health care programs, while roughly two-thirds of Texans say the state should expand its Medicaid program.

A study comparing the community benefit expenditures of two sets of Houston hospitals leads the authors to propose strategies that can better justify the tax exemptions the institutions enjoy.

The author analyzes the major claims and implications of the Surgeon General's report "Facing Addiction in America," and proposes additional drug policy considerations for addressing substance use disorders.

About 1 million Texans gained health care coverage due to the Affordable Care Act, according to new research by health policy fellows Vivian Ho and Elena Marks. The new findings published in the American Journal of Public Health examined the effects of the ACA’s Marketplace on Texas residents and determined which population subgroups benefited the most and the least.

Almost two-thirds of Texans ages 18 to 64 stayed insured with health care coverage during the past 12 months, according to a new report by Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy and the Episcopal Health Foundation.

This policy brief analyzes the impact of the increasing number of parents who opt their children out of school-entry vaccinations for nonmedical reasons in Texas and argues that the state should make obtaining nonmedical exemptions more rigorous in order to reduce the public health risks and costs associated with vaccine-preventable diseases.

The percentage of young adults ages 18 to 34 in Texas without health insurance has dropped by 35 percent since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect.