The results of the 2020 elections will bring a sea of change in federal health insurance policy. CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette, Kevin Lucia, and JoAnn Volk consider what the Biden-Harris administration will tackle as it takes office, and what it means for Americans’ access to affordable, comprehensive insurance.
The Supreme Court has required the federal government to reimburse health insurers for an estimated $12.3 billion in unpaid risk corridor funds and the Trump administration recently published guidance to insurers that affects the amount to be returned to policyholders. In an Expert Perspective for the State Health & Value Strategies program, Sabrina Corlette and Jason Levitis consider the effects of this guidance and state options for redirecting insurers’ extra cash to benefit policyholders and the public.
States and the federal government are preparing for the approval of a COVID-19 vaccine. But just as important as distributing and administering the vaccine is figuring out how to pay for it. In her latest “expert perspective” for the State Health & Value Strategies program, Sabrina Corlette discusses recent federal efforts to ensure that private health plans cover the full costs of a COVID-19 vaccine, as well as options for states to close potential gaps in coverage.
Georgetown University’s Center for Children & Families is out with their annual report on kids’ health coverage. This year, they document an ominous increase in the number of children without insurance. Our friend and colleague Joan Alker shares the top findings from this important new study.
California has enacted a law strengthening the state’s mental health parity protections for Californians. The new law tackles some of the shortcomings identified in a new CHIR report assessing the state’s enforcement of MHPAEA.
With the Affordable Care Act now at significantly greater risk in the Supreme Court, the Trump administration releases an executive order outlining its health care “plan.” CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette takes a look.
To re-open safely, many employers will need to rely on regular testing for the virus that causes COVID-19. But doing so is expensive, and some have called for it to be financed by employers’ health benefit plans. In a new post for the Health Affairs blog, CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette joins the Urban Institute’s Linda Blumberg and Michael Simpson in a look at the data. They find that relying on group plan coverage alone would place an excessive burden on workers.
A new report published by the Urban Institute provides updated estimates on how many people are likely to become uninsured as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated job losses. Our colleague Joan Alker of Georgetown’s Center for Children & Families takes a look at the grim forecast.
The Trump administration recently issued guidance to health insurers, determining that they are not required to cover workplace or public health surveillance testing for COVID-19. In a recent post for the State Health & Value Strategies project, Sabrina Corlette assesses what this latest federal interpretation means for states’ efforts to combat the pandemic.
Many Americans are pinning their hopes on a vaccine to bring COVID-19 to heel. But, as George Washington University and CHIR experts outline in a new blog post for the Commonwealth Fund, our patchwork quilt system of public and private insurance will likely be insufficient to achieve the necessary population-wide immunity.
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.
