The Commonwealth Fund

The State of Rural Primary Care in the United States

Rural Americans face significant barriers to accessing adequate primary care; tailored federal and state programs can help ...
The Commonwealth Fund

Revisiting the Orphan Drug Act

The Orphan Drug Act has catalyzed innovation in rare disease treatments, but the law’s shortcomings — particularly around ...
The Commonwealth Fund

The Causes and Impacts of Burnout Among Primary Care Physicians in 10 Countries

This survey brief examines factors contributing to burnout among primary care physicians in 10 countries and strategies to ...
The Commonwealth Fund

How Will States Implement the Behavioral Health Exemption to Medicaid Work Requirements?

H.R. 1, the tax and spending law passed in 2025, requires states to implement work requirements for expanded Medicaid ...
Commonwealth Fund

The Pitfalls of Regulating Health Care Prices Are Real but Manageable

Of all the many imperfections of U.S. health care markets, the most egregious might be the noncompetitive conditions created when health care providers, particularly hospitals and health systems, ...
Commonwealth Fund

The State of Health Insurance Coverage in the U.S.

An estimated 26 million Americans, or 8 percent of the U.S. population, lacked health insurance in 2023. 1 While the United States still lags countries that have universal coverage, today’s uninsured ...
Commonwealth Fund

Policy Innovations in the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces

More people than ever rely on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplaces for health insurance. 1 Millions more will become eligible for marketplace coverage after losing Medicaid as the ...
Commonwealth Fund

Maternal Mortality in the United States: A Primer

In 2017, at a time when maternal mortality was declining worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the U.S. was one of only two countries (along with the Dominican Republic) to ...
Commonwealth Fund

Health and Health Care for Women of Reproductive Age

How the United States Compares with Other High-Income Countries The maternal mortality crisis in the United States has been well documented: U.S. women have the highest rate of maternal deaths among ...
Commonwealth Fund

Federal Cuts to Medicaid Could End Medicaid Expansion and Affect Hospitals in Nearly Every State

The U.S. Congress is considering deep cuts to federal Medicaid spending, as much as $880 billion over 10 years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, such cuts would represent a 12 percent ...
Commonwealth Fund

Stressed Out and Burned Out: The Global Primary Care Crisis

Findings from the 2022 International Health Policy Survey of Primary Care Physicians For at least the past two decades, the United States and other countries around the world have been bracing for a ...
Commonwealth Fund

The Affordable Care Act's Payment and Delivery System Reforms: A Progress Report at Five Years

In addition to its expansion and reform of health insurance coverage, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) contains numerous provisions intended to resolve underlying problems in how health care is delivered ...