Research Library

It may pay to shop around for health care. New legislation requiring transparency in health insurance coverage allows price comparisons between hospitals, across hospital systems, and with different insurers. In a new issue brief, Vivian Ho and co-author Evelyn Li compare quality and analyze pricing data from Houston area hospitals.

In a review of 10 years of data, fellows Shao-Chee Sim and Elena Marks show how the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace has drastically reduced the number of uninsured Texans and urge policymakers to find ways to maximize its impact so that affordable health coverage is accessible to all.

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.

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.

The percentage of Hispanics in Texas without health insurance has dropped by 30 percent since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect, but almost one-third of Hispanic Texans ages 18 to 64 remain uninsured.

The percentage of Texans without health insurance has dropped by 30 percent since the Affordable Care Act (ACA) went into effect, cutting the state’s uninsured rate below 1999 levels.

Texans who bought their own health insurance were less likely to understand basic terms and how to use their plans compared to those with Medicare, Medicaid or employee-sponsored health insurance.