The Thanksgiving weekend brought news for health care consumers to be thankful for. Healthcare.gov successfully handled 2 million visitors in 2 days. And the New York Times reported further good news about health care costs. Elissa Dines takes a closer look.
The Basic Health Program was included in the Affordable Care Act to provide states with an alternative coverage option for low-income adults. The Obama Administration recently proposed rules to govern the program. Our colleague Sonya Schwartz at Georgetown’s Center for Children for Children and Families suggests a few improvements to make the program more effective for consumers.
Implementation of the President’s proposed fix for health insurance policy cancellations rests with state officials and insurance companies. Many states opting not to pursue the policy fix are those who have invested the most in the success of the Affordable Care Act. In their latest blog for The Commonwealth Fund, Kevin Lucia, Katie Keith, and Sabrina Corlette evaluate the policy and legal factors underpinning states’ decisions.
The Affordable Care Act includes a range of health insurance reforms that will lead to health care costs being shared more evenly between the healthy and the sick. Some experts have pointed to concerns that in the short term, there will be premium “rate shock” for some individuals, while in the long term, exchanges will be vulnerable to adverse selection if they attract a disproportionate number of older, sicker enrollees. Under the ACA, states have considerable flexibility to implement additional strategies to manage their markets and protect consumers. In collaboration with researchers at the Urban Institute, CHIR faculty members Sabrina Corlette and Sarah Dash examine states’ strategies to make premiums more affordable and protect the exchanges from potential adverse selection.
The latest Health Affairs podcast features CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette and Bob Laszewski of Health Policy and Strategy Associates. Their wide-ranging conversation covers the roll out of the health insurance marketplaces, ending discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions, and the long-term prognosis for reform
The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held an oversight hearing yesterday, November 15, to discuss ACA implementation issues. CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette testified on her analysis of policy proposals to address plan cancellations. Elissa Dines listened in and offers this account.
Last Thursday, the President apologized to those individuals currently covered under an individual policy and who will need to transition to a new policy that complies with the 2014 requirements under the Affordable Care Act. In his latest blog, David Cusano notes that this result was a necessary and predictable one, and encourages Americans to accept the President’s apology and move forward by promoting and implementing the protections under the ACA.
The Obama Administration will soon release the first month enrollment figures for the new health insurance marketplaces. To put these early numbers in perspective, our Georgetown University Health Policy Institute colleague Jack Hoadley reflects on the Medicare Part D experience.
A massive consumer outreach and education effort is underway to help consumers understand their new coverage options under the Affordable Care Act. But obstacles remain, particularly in states with federally facilitated marketplaces. In the second of a two-part series of blogs for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR faculty members Sarah Dash, Kevin Lucia, and Justin Giovannelli examined the range of outreach efforts across the states.
Seventeen states have enacted rules for health insurance marketplace navigators that could hinder their ability to provide consumer assistance. In a blog series published by the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR experts Justin Giovannelli, Kevin Lucia and Sarah Dash take a closer look at these laws and their impact on outreach and enrollment.
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.
