Author Archive: CHIR Faculty

CHIR Expert Testifies Before the House Committee on Small Business Regarding Enhancements to the ACA

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On February 7, the House Committee on Small Business held a hearing titled, “Reimagining the Health Care Marketplace for America’s Small Businesses,” to discuss the challenges small businesses are facing in the health insurance marketplaces and to offer potential solutions for the next phase of reform. Georgetown’s own Dania Palanker provided testimony on how the ACA has helped to lessen the burdens for small business owners who wish to provide health coverage to employees.

Total Cost Estimators: Lessons from the ACA’s Marketplaces

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CHIR researchers Justin Giovannelli and Emily Curran interviewed more than 40 marketplace officials, consumer assisters, technology vendors, and other subject matter experts to see how having an estimator can change consumers’ experiences in the marketplace and to understand the concerns of policymakers as they have considered whether and how to implement these tools.

Progress on Mental Health Coverage Could Be Gutted by ACA Repeal

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State regulators were making progress on mental health parity enforcement, due in part to new federal grants and technical assistance. But a repeal of the ACA would put at risk further progress on achieving parity in coverage for mental health and substance use disorders.

Affordable Care Act Repeal Efforts Would Impact State Laws, Too

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With much of the attention about ACA repeal efforts focused on Washington DC, it’s easy to forget that repeal-and-replacement efforts would significantly affect state approaches to insurance regulation. In their latest article for The Commonwealth Fund’s To The Point blog, Kevin Lucia and Katie Keith examine what might happen in the 32 states and D.C. that have adopted state-level ACA protections.

Repealing The ACA Could Worsen The Opioid Epidemic

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As our country grapples with an “unprecedented opioid epidemic,” Congress is taking steps to take away an important tool to fight it — the Affordable Care Act (ACA). In a post for the Health Affairs blog, CHIR expert Dania Palanker and Urban Institute researchers Lisa Clemans-Cope and Jane Wishner assess policies and programs under the ACA that have helped tackle the opioid crisis and what could be lost if they are repealed.

State Experiences Show Why Repealing the ACA’s Premium Subsidies and Individual Mandate Would Cripple Individual Health Insurance Markets

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What will happen if the Affordable Care Act is repealed without a replacement? In their latest article for The Commonwealth Fund, CHIR experts Justin Giovannelli and Kevin Lucia find that it could look a lot like the regulatory landscape that existed in several states that tried to enact health reform in the past. The lessons from those experiences are grim.

Promising Steps to Strengthen Marketplace Risk Pools Could be in Vain, if Affordable Care Act is Repealed

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While critics have been describing the demise of the marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act, the Obama Administration has been taking steps to strengthen the risk pool and to ensure its long-term sustainability. These promising steps are now at risk under the threat of repeal with nothing to replace approach that Congressional leaders and the new administration seem to be taking. At risk and in jeopardy is the coverage of millions of people. CHIR’s Sandy Ahn takes a look.

States That Leaned In on the Affordable Care Act Have Much to Lose

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In the wake of the Affordable Care Act’s passage, 17 states embraced the chance to set up and manage their own marketplace and design an insurance market to meet local needs. In their latest article for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR experts Sabrina Corlette, Emily Curran and Kevin Lucia review these states’ progress on expanding coverage and stabilizing their markets and find that they have much to lose if the law is repealed.

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.