Indiana, a state with a federally facilitated health insurance marketplace, is also home to health care giants Wellpoint, Inc. and Eli Lilly and Company. In a column she wrote for the October 7 edition of the Indianapolis Business Journal, CHIR faculty member Sally McCarty, a former Indiana insurance commissioner, makes a case for allowing Indiana residents to enroll in the federal marketplace without obstruction.
The new health insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act had a bumpy launch this week, overwhelmed with traffic, and with many interested shoppers facing technical glitches comparing plans and enrolling in coverage. But this wasn’t the first time an administration faced challenges rolling out a key domestic policy priority. Jack Hoadley of Georgetown University’s Health Policy reminds us in this blog that Medicare Part D’s web-based plan comparison tool faced similar technical problems.
PBS’ News Hour took a look at the early experience of the health insurance marketplaces, featuring CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette and the American Enterprise Institute’s Joe Antos. Elissa Dines tuned in and offers highlights.
The new health insurance marketplaces open for business today. In a blog originally posted on The Commonwealth Fund blog, Kevin Lucia, Sabrina Corlette and Sarah Dash remind us that while the marketplaces, like all start-ups, are likely to experience some early glitches, for the millions who have been shut out of coverage because of a pre-existing condition or an inability to afford insurance, we are entering a new era of consumer-focused health insurance.
For those new to health policy, or even old hands that need a little brushing up, the Alliance for Health Reform has released Covering Health Issues: A Sourcebook for Journalists. It’s chock full of great health policy explainers, including up-to-the minute information on the Affordable Care Act and a new chapter on health insurance marketplaces, authored by CHIR’s own Sabrina Corlette and Sarah Dash.
Navigators, in-person assisters, and certified application counselors (CACs) have been getting a lot of attention lately. But when it comes to CACs in particular, there’s lots of uncertainty about who they are, what they’ll be doing, and how. Our colleague Tricia Brooks takes a moment to answer a series of questions about CACs.
Media outlets are reporting on a trend towards narrow network health plans offered through the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces. Max Farris and Sally McCarty provide context for this emerging issue and discuss the state role in ensuring consumers have access to a sufficient number of primary care and specialty care physicians, facilities, and other providers.
The U.S. House of Representatives’ Energy and Commerce Committee held an oversight hearing to assess the Administration’s readiness for the October 1st launch of the health insurance marketplaces. The focus of the Committee quickly turned to the Navigator program. Elissa Dines has this report from a contentious hearing.
In yet another attempt in a very long line of efforts to delay or derail the health care law, members of the House Energy & Commerce Committee demanded that organizations awarded federal navigator grants answer multiple detailed questions and produce reams of paper documents about their grants. Our colleague at Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, Tricia Brooks, takes a look at what’s driving the debate over consumer assistance and the ACA.
The Affordable Care Act includes sweeping insurance reforms to improve the affordability and adequacy of coverage. However, some insurers have begun encouraging their customers to renew their coverage ahead of schedule in order to delay implementing these reforms for up to 12 months. In a post that originally appeared on the Commonwealth Fund blog, Christine Monahan and Sabrina Corlette describe how insurers are taking advantage of a loophole in the law and summarize states’ efforts to prohibit or limit the practice.
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.
