Author Archive: CHIR Faculty

Need Health Policy Basics? Help is Here

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.

Answering Your Questions on Certified Application Counselors

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.

Narrow Networks: Who’s Looking Out for Consumers?

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.

Attacks on Navigators Continue at House Energy and Commerce Committee Hearing

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.

Navigators Should Not Let Politics Thwart Their Important Work

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’s Early Renewal Loophole: What’s at Stake and What States Are Doing to Close It

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.

New Report on ACA Implications for State Network Adequacy Standards

The Affordable Care Act promises consumers a more comprehensive set of health insurance benefits, but whether consumers are able to access those benefits depends in part on whether states adhere to or build upon the law’s network adequacy standards. CHIR researchers recently released a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded report evaluating current federal and state efforts to regulate plan networks. Max Farris provides an overview.

Why Should Health Insurance Exchanges Drive Higher-Quality Health Care?

The Affordable Care Act requires the Qualified Health Plans (QHPs) participating in health insurance exchanges to report on quality measures and implement quality improvement strategies. In December, HHS issued a Request for Information Regarding Health Care Quality for Exchanges in preparation for implementing these initiatives. In this blog, Sarah Dash provides a real-life illustration of why these quality improvement efforts are needed.

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.