Recent research highlights how health insurance coverage eases financial pressure on families’ budgets, particularly for low-income families. Karina Wagnerman from our sister center, the Center for Children & Families, highlights the findings from two key studies.
Last year brought a lot of surprises in health care policy, and 2018 is shaping up to be more of the same. Here health insurance experts at CHIR, including Sabrina Corlette, Kevin Lucia, JoAnn Volk, Justin Giovannelli, and Dania Palanker share the policies and market trends that they’ll be watching in the year to come.
Blink and you may have missed it – open enrollment for HealthCare.gov was much shorter this year and ended on December 15th. But many people will have extra time to sign up if they’re in a plan that’s being discontinued. CHIR’s Sandy Ahn answers some frequently asked questions about consumers’ options if they’re in this circumstance.
The Alexander-Murray bill to fund the Affordable Care Act’s cost-sharing subsidies could be included in an end-of-year budget deal. It includes provisions requiring states to make some quick decisions on an issue that many may have thought was put to bed. CHIR’s Justin Giovannelli provides an overview of what states may need to do, and when, if Alexander-Murray passes.
The Trump Administration has proposed a number of changes to the Affordable Care Act’s essential health benefit standard, marketplace operations, and other consumer protections. In this first in a series of blog posts analyzing public comments on the proposed rules, CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette finds that insurance industry responses were not always what you’d expect.
New rules are due any day now in response to President Trump’s October 13, 2017 executive order to expand access to short-term limited-duration health plans that don’t have to comply with Affordable Care Act protections. The impact of the proposed new rules were debated at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners’ December meeting, as well as potential state policy options to protect consumers and stabilize their markets. CHIR recently outlined some in an issue brief, and we share some highlights here.
Open enrollment for 2018 Affordable Care Act coverage ends on December 15th. While in the midst of the holiday rush some of you might be tempted to procrastinate, CHIR’s Sandy Ahn outlines three really important reasons to get get moving and shop for a health plan on healthcare.gov.
The Trump administration recently issued a proposed regulation that could significantly impact how much of consumers’ premium dollars are spent on their health care needs. CHIR expert Kevin Lucia assesses the proposed relaxation of the Affordable Care Act’s “80-20” or medical loss ratio standards and outlines policy options for states wishing to maintain them.
The U.S. House of Representatives’ tax reform bill would eliminate the medical expense deduction to help pay for cuts to corporate tax rates. CHIR’s Maanasa Kona takes a look at this deduction, who takes advantage of it, and how losing it could impact people with chronic or high cost medical conditions.
The individual market may not be dead yet, but it soon will be, thanks to recent actions by the Trump administration and congressional efforts to repeal the individual mandate. CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette examines the cause of death, and what the loss of the individual market will mean for the millions of middle class families that rely on it.
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.
