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Health Care Reform

A Guide to Finding Government Information

Web version of this guide includes links to web resources.

Search Tips:

Mix and match these terms in searching the library catalog, WestCat , or use them to search journal articles and law reviews via the library's Databases page. You can also use them to search government information sites listed on our Starting Points page - click the tab and pay particular attention to the Top Six.

  • Affordable care Act
  • Obamacare
  • Medicaid
  • health care reform
  • health insurance
  • health care costs
  • medical care
  • medically uninsured persons
  • individual mandate
  • single-payer
  • pre-existing condition
  • employer-sponsored

Related Topic:
  • Medicare

An important source for many research topics is Congress. Congressional committees and subcommittees hold hearings on a wide variety of controversial and timely subjects. Simply add the word "hearing?" to a search string in WestCat .

Search Engines

Google and StartPage
Use these search engines to search for government information by typing "site:gov" in the search box preceding your search terms:

  • site:gov "health care reform"
  • site:mil affordable care act
Federal Government Information
HealthCare.gov

This government website has tools and FAQs to help citizens demystify the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
http://www.healthcare.gov/

Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, P.L. 111-148

Referred to in the vernacular as "Obamacare" by media and political pundits, this is one of the signature pieces of legislation from the Obama Administration. Modeled after the health reform law in Massachusetts, this Act attempts to decrease the number of uninsured by expanding Medicaid, creating state insurance exchanges through which people can buy insurance. The pieces of the plan unfold over a period of years.
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/PLAW-111publ148/pdf/PLAW-111publ148.pdf

Health Reform Source

This website from the Kaiser Family Foundation (from HMO Kaiser Permanente fame) has been tracking state compliance with the health care reform law. You can find tons of news and data on the topic, including a timeline describing when the different provisions roll out. They even have a health reform subsidy calculator where you can put in your expected earnings for 2014 and learn how much it will cost you to participate in the insurance exchanges and how much will be subsidized by the government.
http://healthreform.kff.org/

National Federal of Independent Business et al. v. Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, et al.

This Supreme Court Opinion upheld the individual mandate in the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" but not the requirement for states to agree to Medicaid Expansion in order to receive any Medicaid funds at all.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf

Medicaid Expansion: States' Implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

This report was released soon after, but does not include the repercussions of, the U.S. Supreme Court decision concerning the Act's mandatory Medicaid expansion provision being struck down. The report examines budgetary impacts to the states and details the law's requirements. 2012
http://www.gao.gov/assets/600/593210.pdf

Health Reform in Action

This is President Obama's official page concerning the new health (insurance) reform law. Learn about new benefits, explore the timeline and read news stories.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform

Job Lock and the Potential Impact of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

This report discusses the extent to which workers stay in jobs because of the affordable health benefits and how the PPACA might affect this phenomenon. 2011
http://www.gao.gov/assets/590/586973.pdf

The Cost of Care for the Uninsured: What Do We Spend, Who Pays, and What Would Full Coverage Add to Medical Spending?

Statistics, charts, graphs, and data illustrating the need for health care financing reform. 2004
http://www.kff.org/uninsured/upload/the-cost-of-care-for-the-uninsured-what-do-we-spend-who-pays-and-what-would-full-coverage-add-to-medical-spending.pdf

Illinois Government Information
Health Care Reform In Illinois - What It Means for You

This website was developed to keep Illinoisans up-to-date on the state's implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act
http://healthcarereform.illinois.gov/

National Health Insurance Reform – Timeline for Implementation of Selected Health Insurance Provisions

This page from the Illinois Department of Insurance lists the effective dates of the ndividual provisions of the PPACA.
http://insurance.illinois.gov/healthinsurance/ppaca_reforms.asp

Illinois Health Benefits Exchange Law

This law was passed to ensure that the state makes sufficient progress toward establishing a health care benefits exchange for lower income persons and small businesses as required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/97/PDF/097-0142.pdf

Legal Information
Ethically Economic: the Affordable Care Act's Impact on the Administration of Health Benefits

This article looks at Obamacare in light of its overall benefit to society.
DePaul Journal of Health Care Law v.14, p.99 via  Nexis Uni

If We Can Force People to Purchase Health Insurance, Then Let's Force Them to Be Treated Too

The author applies the rationales for the constitutionality of the individual mandate to forced treatment directives, which are, in his thinking, a natural extension of those rationales.
American Journal of Law & Medicine vol.38, p.397 via  Nexis Uni

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