Author Archive: CHIR Faculty

Third-Party Administrators – The Middlemen Of Self-Funded Health Insurance

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Pharmacy benefit managers have received significant public attention for their exploitative, cost increasing practices, but similar practices of third-party administrators (TPAs) have received relatively little public attention. In their latest piece for Health Affairs Forefront, Karen Handorf, Christine Monahan, and Kennah Watts argue that understanding TPA business models and how they generate profits requires looking under the hood at their agreements with health care providers and other third-party intermediaries.

Considerations for Federal Agencies Tasked with Improving Health Plan Price Transparency Data

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While the health plan price transparency data available under current guidance and enforcement have proven challenging to access and use, a renewed focus under the Trump administration aims to improve Transparency in Coverage (TiC) data. In this blog, CHIR experts Stacey Pogue and Nadia Stovicek present insights into known issues with TiC machine-readable files, a recent executive order’s implications, and the issues that limit access to publicly available TiC data.

Health Insurance Transitions For Young People With Diabetes Can Be Life Threatening

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As Congress debates policies that would disenroll millions of people from both Medicaid and marketplace coverage, young adults living with diabetes could face coverage losses and challenges finding private insurance that is both comprehensive and affordable. In their latest piece for Health Affairs, Amy Killelea and Christine Monahan explore how variations in health insurance coverage can make health coverage transitions difficult for these young adults.

The Sleeper Provision in the Reconciliation Bill That Could Hobble the ACA Marketplaces

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An obscure provision in the U.S. House reconciliation bill could have major consequences for the Affordable Care Act Marketplaces. In a guest post for CHIRblog, the Urban Institute’s Jason Levitis and Brookings’ Visiting Fellow Christen Linke-Young dig into how this provision could radically change people’s ability to access and maintain affordable health insurance.

Death by Slow Strangulation: New Tactics in Longstanding Efforts to Repeal the Affordable Care Act 

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The U.S. House of Representatives is poised to take up legislation that, if enacted, would be tantamount to a repeal of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for millions of Americans who will lose their health insurance, and for millions more who will be required to submit to red tape and higher costs to retain their coverage. CHIR experts Sabrina Corlette, Karen Davenport, and Stacey Pogue dive into what the bill includes and what it means for the 24 million Americans who are covered through the ACA Marketplaces.

Federal Rule Gives Regulators Enhanced Tools to Ensure Equitable Access to Behavioral Health Care

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Last fall, the Biden Administration finalized a rule updating standards for the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). In their latest piece for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR’s JoAnn Volk and Billy Dering discuss the new requirements for use of “non-quantitative treatment limits” that impose significant barriers to behavioral health treatment.

The opinions expressed here are solely those of the individual blog post authors and do not represent the views of Georgetown University, the Center on Health Insurance Reforms, any organization that the author is affiliated with, or the opinions of any other author who publishes on this blog.