As we approach the end of the public health emergency, Medicaid will not be the only program affected by pandemic relief policies that expire. CHIR’s Emma Walsh-Alker and Megan Houston reviewed other policies that expire at the end of the PHE including mandated coverage of COVID-19 tests and related care, lower barriers to telehealth, and ease the use of mental health and substance use services.
Along with the cherry blossoms, new health policy research was in full bloom this month. In addition to filling out our March Madness brackets, the CHIR team reviewed studies on health insurance rates during the pandemic, how the Affordable Care Act (ACA) impacted women’s health coverage, and consumer access to high-quality marketplace plans.
In the proposed Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters for 2023, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services asked for feedback on how to promote health equity through ACA marketplace operations and plan certification standards. CHIR’s Rachel Swindle reviewed comments from states, insurers, and consumer advocates to see how they responded.
The Affordable Care Act was signed into law on March 23, 2010. On the law’s 12th birthday, Karen Davenport pays tribute to its hard-won coverage gains and describes the gaps that remain.
After the Biden administration issued the proposed 2023 “Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters,” several hundred stakeholders provided feedback on the new set of rules governing the ACA’s marketplaces and health insurance standards. To better understand the impact of the proposed rules, CHIR reviewed a sample of stakeholder comments. For the third blog in our series, Rachel Schwab summarizes comments submitted by state departments of insurance and state-based marketplaces.
The Biden administration has proposed significant changes to the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces through the annual “Notice of Benefit & Payment Parameters.” In this second of a three-part series, CHIR’s Megan Houston and Sabrina Corlette review the comments and recommendations that participating health insurers have submitted in response.
In honor of Black History Month, for the February edition of CHIR’s monthly research roundup we reviewed new health policy research centering the experiences of Black people in the U.S. health care system, including structural racism in health care policy, the impact of state Affordable Care Act (ACA) implementation on racial and ethnic minority populations, and trends in coverage, care access, and health outcomes among Black Americans.
In the recently released 2023 “Notice of Benefit & Payment Parameters,” the Biden administration is proposing significant changes to the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. In the first of a three-part series, CHIR’s Emma Walsh-Alker and JoAnn Volk reviewed public comments from multiple consumer advocacy organizations about the impact of the new policies on marketplace beneficiaries. Reviews of comments from insurers and state marketplaces and insurance departments will follow.
Health insurers reported healthy earnings during the fourth quarter of 2021, thanks in large part to publicly funded programs Medicare and Medicaid. CHIR’s Megan Houston reviewed earnings reports for nine major insurers and reports on the key market trends in the health insurance industry.
Unpaid medical bills are among the largest contributors to personal debt in the United States. Evidence indicates that medical debt disproportionately affects people of color and individuals with lower incomes. CHIR’s Maanasa Kona reviews new data from the Census Bureau and state court records that demonstrate the disparate impact of medical debt on vulnerable populations, and explores what policymakers can do to protect consumers from aggressive debt collection.
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.
