Author Archive: CHIR Faculty
Kentucky Drops Adult Dental Care from State’s Essential Health Benefits Benchmark Plan Submission

The 2025 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters gave states the flexibility to require adult dental coverage beginning in plan year 2027. CHIR experts discuss Kentucky’s decision to not add adult dental services as an essential health benefit and what recent federal law changes may mean for states considering coverage changes.
Explainer: The Medicaid and Marketplace Provisions of the Budget Reconciliation Bill
CHIR Welcomes New Faculty
We are delighted to welcome two new faculty members: Madison Harden and Abigail Knapp.
No Surprises Act Arbitrators Vary Significantly In Their Decision Making Patterns

IDR entities have come to play an instrumental role in OON payments, but entities’ determinations and decision-making practices lack transparency. In their latest piece for Health Affairs Forefront, Kennah Watts and Jack Hoadley analyze variation IDR entities’ decision-making patterns and discuss the implications for the IDR process.
A Setback, Not a Defeat: Our Work to Ensure Access to Affordable, High Quality Health Care Continues

President Trump’s signature on H.R. 1, the budget reconciliation bill, will lead to upwards of 17 million people losing their health insurance and millions more with higher barriers to accessing care. At CHIR, we’ll be working to minimize the law’s harms, document its effects, and partner with those seeking to reverse its worst abuses.
Explore the Data: Interactive Map of Dental Coverage Through the Marketplaces
Independent Dispute Resolution Process 2024 Data: High Volume, More Provider Wins

While the independent dispute resolution (IDR) process is intended to lead to fair outcomes for out-of-network payment, new analysis demonstrates unexpectedly high use of the IDR process, mostly by private-equity-backed providers that win often and win large. In their latest piece for Health Affairs Forefront, Jack Hoadley, Kennah Watts, and Zachary Baron illustrate trends in the IDR process and explore implications for costs.
Early 2026 Rate Filings Show Marketplace Policy Changes Contribute to Eye-Popping Rate Increases

This year, insurers are setting their rates for 2026 while Congress and the administration weigh several policies that are projected to cause premiums to spike and the number of people with Marketplace coverage to plummet. In a new blog, CHIR experts investigate early 2026 rate filings and related analysis to explore how insurers are responding to an array of anticipated federal ACA policy changes and uncertainty around them.
Second Verse, Same as the First: Senate Reconciliation Language Failes to Fix Paperwork Burdens, Other Barriers to Marketplace Coverage

With the passage of H.R.1, the House of Representatives’ version of the budget reconciliation bill that will advance President Trump’s domestic policy agenda, all eyes are turned towards the Senate. In a new CHIRblog, ACA experts Karen Davenport, Stacey Pogue, and Sabrina Corlette discuss how draft legislation emerging from the Senate would create enrollment barriers to Marketplace coverage that largely mirror the House’s reconciliation bill.