Health Affairs Web Exclusive Examines Public Employees’ Health Benefits; KaiserEDU Publishes New Tutorials

• "Public Employees' Health Benefits Survive Major Threats, So Far," Health Affairs: In a Health Affairs Web exclusive, Bob Hurley, associate professor of health administration at Virginia Commonwealth University and a senior consulting researcher at the Center for Studying Health System Change; Laurie Felland, a health researcher at HSC; and colleagues examine the results of an HSC study that finds that, despite rising health care costs and tight budgets, there has been little change to public employees' health benefits in recent years. New government agency accounting rules and the increasing gap between public- and private-sector benefits could force government officials to change benefits for public employees, the report says (Hurley et al., Health Affairs, 4/18).
  
  
• New tutorials, KaiserEDU.org: The Web site recently posted two new, narrated slide tutorials. In Congress and Health Policy, Sheila Burke -- deputy secretary and chief operating officer of the Smithsonian Institution; Kaiser Family Foundation board chair; and previously the executive dean of the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government and chief of staff for Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) -- describes major differences between the House and Senate, key committees involved in the development of health policy and some "rules of the road" for individuals who plan to get involved in congressional policymaking. In Access to Care for People with Disabilities, Jeff Crowley of the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University provides an overview of the policy issues related to health care access for people with disabilities. The tutorial discusses the types and prevalence of disabilities in the U.S., major health care financing mechanisms, and the interaction of the Medicaid program with the American with Disabilities Act (Kaiser Family Foundation release, 4/18).