Last month, the Department of Health & Human Services released proposed rules aimed at stabilizing the ACA’s health insurance marketplaces. After a 20-day comment period, they received close to 4,000 public comments. In the second post in our series on the reactions of health care stakeholders, CHIR’s Rachel Schwab looks at comments from consumer advocacy groups.
Congressional leaders and the President have said any plan to replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will ensure access for people with pre-existing conditions. However, how they are covered matters a great deal, in part because of the effects on the stability of the risk pool in the individual market.
Just hours before President Trump took the oath of office, the Maryland health insurance CO-OP Evergreen Health officially closed a deal with the Centers on Medicare and Medicaid Service (CMS) to sever its ties with the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) CO-OP program. The company will now transition from a nonprofit to a for-profit company, allowing it to gain an infusion of financing from outside investors. Executives credited the deal with enabling Evergreen to survive and stay competitive. However, it also provides insight into the immense challenges involved in starting up a new insurance company in the current market, even with federal financing.
State leaders have been heartened by statements from the new President and Congressional leaders that ACA replacement plans will give them more autonomy over their health insurance markets. But is that really true? In a post for the Health Affairs blog, CHIR experts Sabrina Corlette and Kevin Lucia examine the fine print of House and Senate replacement plans and find that they broadly preempt state authority.
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.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has increased access to health care by expanding coverage and reducing the number of uninsured, but problems facing consumers and insurers have some calling for repealing, replacing, or repairing the law. It seems every day we are presented with a new replacement plan or proposed rule, leaving the future of the health care landscape uncertain. Recently, CHIR sent Rachel Schwab to cover two D.C. events that brought together health policy experts to discuss the options and obstacles in front of us.
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.
As the health care debate continues, we face a number of unknowns. Congressional leadership and President Trump vowed to repeal the ACA, but have yet to reach a consensus on the replacement plan. Meanwhile, consumers and insurers are making big decisions about health plans without knowing what the individual market will look like. Predicting the impact of unknown events is no easy task; if you’ve misplaced your crystal ball, the American Academy of Actuaries (AAA) recently released an issue paper on the future of the individual market, lending their expertise to a debate riddled with uncertainty.
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.
Before the Affordable Care Act, where you lived determined how accessible and affordable coverage would be. In a new primer, we provide a 50-state review of access and affordability requirements before the ACA set a federal floor. This look back shows us the landscape we may return to if the ACA 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.
