The U.S. House of Representatives is debating legislation this week that would undermine consumer protections for small employers and cause premiums to increase for many. Edwin Park of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shares a new analysis of the bill and its impact on small businesses.
Last week the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published final rules for the health insurance marketplaces and participating insurers to renew consumers into coverage for 2015. Our colleague from Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, Tricia Brooks, discusses what the rule means for consumers and their families.
Almost two decades ago, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) adopted a model state law to regulate the adequacy of health plan provider networks. In the wake of consumer and provider concerns about narrow networks, the NAIC is revising the model law. Sabrina Corlette shares an update on their process and timing.
While open enrollment is less than three months away, consumer assisters will have to do more with less. Resources will be limited, even though the Congressional Budget Office projects more than 5 million more people will enroll through a marketplace. CHIR’s Sandy Ahn examines support from the state and federal marketplaces for consumer assistance funding.
Health plans have been increasingly using tiered pharmacy benefit designs. These new designs raise challenges for consumers and the state insurance regulators responsible for reviewing and approving plans for sale. CHIR faculty members Sally McCarty and David Cusano explore these issues in a new brief for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health Reform Assistance Network.
We at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms are excited to share the first of an upcoming video series on timely health insurance topics. In our debut video, CHIR experts Sabrina Corlette, JoAnn Volk, and Dave Cusano provide a preview of upcoming action at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ (NAIC) national meeting to address concerns about network adequacy of health plans offered through the new health insurance Marketplaces.
A federal appeals court’s ruling that premium subsidies aren’t available for consumers who purchase health coverage through one of the ACA’s federally run insurance marketplaces could have drastic consequences. But policymakers in the 34 states with a federal marketplace have options for protecting their residents. In one of CHIR’s blogs for the Commonwealth Fund, Kevin Lucia and Justin Giovannelli discuss those options here.
Though open enrollment into the new health insurance marketplaces is a distant memory and folks are gearing up for round 2 later this year, consumers continue to turn to Navigators and other assisters with questions. JoAnn Volk shares – and provides answers to – a selection of questions we’ve been getting from the field.
“The rates are coming, the rates are coming.” The release of 2015 health insurance premium rates provides new fodder for the latest pronouncements on the success or failure of the Affordable Care Act. In a blog post originally published by the Health Affairs blog, Christopher Koller and Sabrina Corlette decode what’s happening with insurers’ 2015 rate requests and why.
We’re about 110 days away from open enrollment into coverage for 2015. In recent guidance, CMS has revealed its plans for plan renewals and eligibility re-determinations for people enrolled in plans through the marketplaces. Our Georgetown colleague Tricia Brooks takes a look at the envisioned process and some of the benefits – and pitfalls – for consumers.
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.
