Over the weekend we said goodbye to a dear friend. Rob Restuccia lost his 6-month battle against pancreatic cancer, but he never gave up the fight for health equity and justice. We pay tribute to his leadership, commitment and legacy. His life and work inspire us all.
Recent federal guidance made significant changes to the ACA’s section 1332 waiver program in order to give states greater leeway to sidestep ACA rules. But the move has triggered questions about whether the waiver options the Trump administration is touting are practical for states, or even legal. In a new work for The Commonwealth Fund, Justin Giovannelli and JoAnn Volk examine how states are approaching ACA waivers in the wake of the federal policy change.
In October, the Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services issued a proposed rule that aims to expand the “flexibility and use” of health reimbursement arrangements. To understand reactions to the proposal, CHIR reviewed a sample of comments from state officials, insurers, consumer advocates, and employer, broker and benefit advisor groups. In Part 2 of this blog series, we highlight comments from ten major medical insurers and associations, who argued that stronger non-discrimination provisions are needed to prevent adverse selection and ensure stability in the individual market.
After becoming a rallying cry in the midterm elections, pre-existing condition protections have taken center stage on Capitol Hill: in January and February, the House of Representatives held three hearings about protecting people with pre-existing conditions, before the Ways & Means Committee, the Education & Labor Committee, and the Energy & Commerce Subcommittee. As the ACA faces legal challenges in federal court, these proceedings set the scene for how this policy debate will play out in Congress and offer insight into potential legislative action.
In October 2018, the Trump administration proposed rules to expand the use of health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) by loosening current federal limitations. The administration’s proposal would allow employers to offer employees the tax-advantaged accounts to assist with health care expenses, including premiums, in lieu of employer-sponsored coverage. To understand the potential impact of the proposals, CHIR reviewed comments from various stakeholder groups. For the first blog in our series, Rachel Schwab summarizes comments from state marketplaces and state insurance departments.
The expansion of short-term policies has raised concerns that they may be deceptively marketed, with some sellers leading consumers to believe they are buying a comprehensive policy when they are not. While twenty-four states have sought to regulate short-term plans, their efforts may be undermined by a loophole that allows the policies to be sold through out-of-state associations – a practice we found to be quite common.
Open Enrollment has ended in the majority of states, and almost 8.5 million people signed up for coverage through HealthCare.gov. As consumers begin to use their 2019 plans, a host of questions about covered services, cost sharing, provider networks and more are sure to crop up. Luckily, CHIR has answers to frequently asked post-enrollment questions in our recently updated Navigator Resource Guide.
Open Enrollment for 2019 has ended in most states, but consumers are sure to be bombarded with sales pitches for alternative insurance products well beyond the December 15th deadline. Short-term plans are often marketed as lower-priced substitutes for ACA-compliant coverage, even though they cover far less. Since the Trump administration lowered federal guardrails on short-term plans, it has become particularly important for state insurance departments to highlight the limitations of these products. CHIR looked at insurance department websites to see what information was available for consumers regarding short-term plans.
As state legislatures across the country prepare to convene in 2019, improving access to affordable health coverage will likely be on the agenda. Several newly elected officials have expressed an interest in establishing a state reinsurance program, following in the footsteps of a handful of states who have utilized the Affordable Care Act’s 1332 waivers for this purpose. As reinsurance gains ground as a state-level effort to promote market stability, stakeholders can learn from the experience of states that have already implemented reinsurance programs. In a new report from Georgetown, authors Rachel Schwab, Emily Curran, and Sabrina Corlette evaluate progress in the three states that have operational reinsurance programs: Alaska, Minnesota, and Oregon.
With just one month left in the open enrollment period for most of the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces, we’ve updated our Navigator Resource Guide to reflect all of the federal health policy changes that have occurred over the last year and have provided answers to hundreds of frequently asked questions (FAQs). In light of the recent wave of health care-related robocalls from scammers, our FAQ of the Week focuses on: Is an insurer allowed to ask me about my health history?
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.
