Access to prescription drugs is critically important to millions of individuals and families nationwide, but too often cost places them out of reach. At the NAIC’s summer national meeting, the consumer representatives to the NAIC released a report on state and federal regulatory options for promoting access to prescription drugs. JoAnn Volk shares highlights here.
The Obama Administration is reviewing feedback on its proposed rule to clamp down on the sale of short-term health plans. If finalized, the rule could help stabilize the Affordable Care Act marketplaces – and help protect consumers from being duped into buying plans that don’t meet their health needs. CHIR’s Dania Palanker shares what she found in a review of what short-term plans actually cover, as well as the mix of industry responses to the Administration’s proposed regulation.
In the late 1990s, Medicare officials faced decisions by insurers to cancel nearly half of their Medicare Advantage contracts. In a new issue brief for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Georgetown experts Jack Hoadley and Sabrina Corlette assess the policies and strategies adopted to manage instability in the Medicare Advantage and Part D markets and whether they can be used to stabilize the Affordable Care Act marketplaces. Key takeaways from that issue brief are shared here.
In the waning days of the Obama Administration, Affordable Care Act regulations continue to trickle out. A recent one from the Internal Revenue Service feels a little like a solution in search of a problem. JoAnn Volk takes a look.
A new issue brief published by the Commonwealth Fund and authored by CHIR’s newest faculty member, Dania Palanker, examines exclusions in insurance policies sold on the ACA marketplaces and finds that several have a disproportionate impact on women, limiting their access to care. Dania shares some highlights.
Small-business owners face unique challenges covering their employees; to lower barriers and increase options, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) created the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP). In a new blog published by The Commonwealth Fund, CHIR experts Emily Curran, Sabrina Corlette, and Kevin Lucia evaluate the current state of these marketplaces three years into implementation.
Limited networks have become increasingly common on ACA marketplaces, comprising almost half of all offerings during the first two years of the exchanges. In a new policy brief for Health Affairs, CHIR experts Justin Giovannelli, Kevin Lucia, and Sabrina Corlette examine what the states and the federal government are doing to ensure that marketplace plan networks are adequate and transparent.
Despite declining funding, enrollment through the state-based marketplaces increased nearly nine percent during the third open enrollment period. To learn what assistance and outreach strategies were most effective in attracting consumers, we surveyed marketplace officials to gain their unique insights and share major findings in our latest report.
On Friday, July 15, CHIR’s very own Kevin Lucia spoke at a briefing on ACA marketplaces put on by the Alliance for Health Reform. Mr. Lucia joined representatives from the Commonwealth Fund, the American Academy of Actuaries, and the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association to discuss the outlook for federally facilitated and state-based exchanges as the fourth open enrollment period approaches in November.
As the federal insurance marketplace moves forward to standardize health plan benefit designs, what lessons can be learned from the state marketplaces that have had similar policies in place since 2014? A new Georgetown report examines the experiences of four state-based marketplaces and finds they have largely failed to meet their policy goals.
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.
