One of the key consumer protections in the Affordable Care Act is the requirement that plans must have a limit on out-of-pocket costs. However, there are limits on the limit, and the details matter. Consumers who need a non-formulary drug run smack into one of those limits, but they have options to get the drugs they need as a covered benefit. JoAnn Volk provides a run down.
Washington DC’s NBC affiliate wanted a status report on the Affordable Care Act, 6 months after full implementation. They turned to one of CHIR’s ACA experts, Sabrina Corlette, for a look at the law’s successes to date, as well as challenges ahead.
This July the Georgetown University Law Center’s O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law is offering its first-ever summer program on the Affordable Care Act. The week long program promises a deep dive look at the legal and policy implications of the law and its implementation. Program co-director Sabrina Corlette shares a sneak peek at the faculty and agenda.
Now that open enrollment into the new health insurance marketplaces has ended, options for consumers seeking to change plans are more limited, even for those enrolled in plans that don’t cover essential health benefits, such as maternity services. Sabrina Corlette tackles one such situation in her latest blog post.
While narrow provider networks are by no means new to health insurance, the practice has received renewed attention as plans participating in the marketplaces turn to network design to keep premium costs low. While consumers benefit from more affordable insurance, overly narrow networks can risk the quality of care consumers receive and increase their out-of-pocket costs. In this blog post originally published by Health Affairs, CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette and JoAnn Volk and the Urban Institute’s Robert Berenson and Judy Feder discuss the cost-access trade-offs for consumers and offer a few recommendations for policymakers.
Now that open enrollment into the new health insurance marketplaces is over, the only way people can enroll in marketplace coverage is by qualifying for a special enrollment period because of a life change such as a birth, marriage, a move, or a divorce. Healthcare.gov recently made available a new “screener tool” to help consumers determine whether they qualify. CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette took the new tool for a test drive and has a few suggested improvements.
A recent complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights against four Florida insurers targets them for violating the Affordable Care Act’s prohibition against discrimination. CHIR expert Sally McCarty evaluates the complaint and its implications for consumers and state insurance regulators.
A new survey commissioned by Enroll America helps us understand why some of the uninsured enrolled in new coverage options under the Affordable Care Act, but others did not. And it includes recommendations to prepare for the next round of open enrollment. Our colleague at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, Cathy Hope, provides this overview.
In response to actions by some health plans to impose benefit-specific waiting periods for coverage of serious health conditions, such as organ transplants, the Obama Administration recently issued guidance to prohibit the practice and protect consumers from discriminatory benefit design. Georgetown Law Center’s Sandy Ahn reviews the new guidance and the impact for consumers in this guest post.
The Obama Administration has finalized rules to protect consumers by regulating the marketing and sale of fixed indemnity policies. Sabrina Corlette provides an overview of the final rule and highlights some outstanding questions.
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.
