November 1 marked the first day of open enrollment on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. To help Navigators and others assisting consumers with marketplace eligibility and enrollment, we’ve created the Navigator Resource Guide. Each week we’ll feature answers to questions that may be top of mind for consumers, such as who is eligible to shop for a marketplace plan.
On November 1, the eighth open enrollment period begins for marketplace coverage under the Affordable Care Act. We at CHIR are tracking several policy changes that could affect marketplace enrollment and plan affordability in 2021, including: impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, new special enrollment periods, and recent court rulings on contraception coverage and the public charge rule. To learn what’s new for 2021, read our CHIRBlog summarizing the major policy changes consumers might encounter this year.
The ACA expanded women’s access to comprehensive coverage. The Trump administration is seeking to overturn the law while promoting coverage options that are exempt from the ACA’s consumer protections, including short-term plans and health care sharing ministries. In a new post for The Commonwealth Fund, CHIR experts examine the differences between ACA plans and the alternatives promoted by the Trump administration, finding that these products frequently exclude or severely limit coverage of services that are critical to women’s health.
A new investigative report shows that even the COVID-19 crisis has not stopped many hospital systems from using aggressive collections practices to collect on unpaid medical debt. CHIR’s Maanasa Kona takes a deep dive into the problem of medical debt and aggressive collections practices, and how the government can step in to protect consumers.
The month of August went by in a flash, or painstakingly slowly, but either way it produced some great health policy research. CHIR’s Nia Gooding provides our monthly round up of health insurance-related studies and analyses.
CHIRblog took a break for Labor Day, but in light of the holiday, we continue to think about problems workers face getting access to affordable health insurance. Employer plans are often touted as the “gold standard” in health insurance. But millions of workers with job-based plans are underinsured, facing high cost sharing and premiums, and the COVID-19 pandemic is exacerbating problems with inadequate coverage as well as insurance access.
We are pleased to welcome to CHIR two new team members, Megan Houston and Nia Gooding. They’ll be working on multiple projects to help expand consumers’ access to comprehensive coverage, improve affordability, and support evidence-based health care policymaking.
The COVID-19 pandemic presents unprecedented threats to health and safety, and exacerbates existing inequities that continue to jeopardize the wellbeing of millions of Americans. To help state policymakers during a time of great upheaval and uncertainty, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ Consumer Representatives put together recommendations on access to coverage and care, health equity and racial justice, and other state policy issues.
This month, CHIR’s Mari Tikoyan read studies on the role of the Affordable Care Act in addressing health insurance disparities among Asian Americans, the impact of COVID-19 on health insurance coverage, and the price of COVID-19 testing.
State legislative sessions are typically a flurry of health policy activity. In recent years, state lawmakers have taken action to stabilize their insurance markets and increase access to coverage. But like so many other constants we have come to rely on, state legislative sessions took a hit this year from the novel coronavirus pandemic, putting current and future state policy initiatives in jeopardy.
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.
