Sara R. Collins, Ph.D., is senior scholar for the Expanding Coverage and Access and Tracking Health System Performance programs at the Commonwealth Fund. An economist, Dr. Collins directs the Fund’s ...

This brief presents updated estimates of severe maternal morbidity overall and across demographic and geographic ...

Across the United States, primary care is widely recognized as essential to improving health outcomes, controlling costs, and ...

This brief was originally published in December 2020 and updated in July 2025. In 2023, at a time when maternal mortality was declining worldwide, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the ...

The U.S. health care system has long been marked by high spending, comparatively poor health outcomes, inequities, waste, and inefficiency. To address these issues, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ...

During the pandemic, rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health problems skyrocketed among young people in the United States. Perhaps the most distressing report: nearly 20 percent of high ...

Why a State Medicare Scorecard? Medicare, established 60 years ago, provides health care coverage for more than 68 million Americans, including nearly all adults age 65 and older as well as 7 million ...

The article is part of a partnership between the Commonwealth Fund and the Bassett Research Institute in Cooperstown, N.Y., to explore innovative approaches to the health care challenges facing rural ...

As the COVID-19 pandemic wore on, multiple surveys and news reports described rising levels of burnout and fatigue among clinicians on the front lines. Among the many nurses and physicians reporting ...

In hospital global budgeting arrangements, a payer or a regulator sets a total amount for patient care revenue that a hospital may receive over a year’s time. As a form of value-based payment, global ...

The longstanding bond between employers and health insurance dates back to World War II, when the implementation of wage controls prompted companies to seek out ways to differentiate themselves from ...