Category: State of the States

Helping People Select Insurance Coverage: A Tale of Two Programs

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Shopping for and selecting a new health coverage plan can be challenging for many consumers. One government program – Medicare Part D – recently announced a new policy to make the process of selecting a prescription drug plan easier for beneficiaries. Sabrina Corlette compares the Medicare approach to that taken by the health insurance marketplaces – and shares new CHIR research on state actions to simplify consumers’ shopping experiences.

Update: State Decisions on the Policy Cancellation Fix

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Implementation of the President’s proposed fix for health insurance policy cancellations rests with state officials and insurance companies. In this blog update for The Commonwealth Fund, Kevin Lucia, Katie Keith, and Sabrina Corlette provide the latest on states’ decisions, as well as an accompanying U.S. map.

How States are Simplifying Plan Choice in State-Based Marketplaces

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Choosing the health plan that best meets your needs is no easy task, with much at stake in terms of both financial protection and access to care. In a new issue brief for The Commonwealth Fund, Christine Monahan, Sarah Dash, Kevin Lucia, and Sabrina Corlette examine the actions taken by state-based health insurance marketplaces to simplify health plan choices.

State Decisions on the Health Insurance Policy Cancellations Fix

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Implementation of the President’s proposed fix for health insurance policy cancellations rests with state officials and insurance companies. Many states opting not to pursue the policy fix are those who have invested the most in the success of the Affordable Care Act. In their latest blog for The Commonwealth Fund, Kevin Lucia, Katie Keith, and Sabrina Corlette evaluate the policy and legal factors underpinning states’ decisions.

New Report Evaluates States’ Strategies to Stabilize Health Insurance Premiums and Build Sustainable Exchanges

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The Affordable Care Act includes a range of health insurance reforms that will lead to health care costs being shared more evenly between the healthy and the sick. Some experts have pointed to concerns that in the short term, there will be premium “rate shock” for some individuals, while in the long term, exchanges will be vulnerable to adverse selection if they attract a disproportionate number of older, sicker enrollees. Under the ACA, states have considerable flexibility to implement additional strategies to manage their markets and protect consumers. In collaboration with researchers at the Urban Institute, CHIR faculty members Sabrina Corlette and Sarah Dash examine states’ strategies to make premiums more affordable and protect the exchanges from potential adverse selection.

Helping Consumers Understand their Coverage Options, from Coast to Coast

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A massive consumer outreach and education effort is underway to help consumers understand their new coverage options under the Affordable Care Act. But obstacles remain, particularly in states with federally facilitated marketplaces. In the second of a two-part series of blogs for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR faculty members Sarah Dash, Kevin Lucia, and Justin Giovannelli examined the range of outreach efforts across the states.

Kaiser Report Finds More Than 5 Million Will Fall Into Coverage Gap Created by States Failing to Expand Medicaid

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There’s been a lot of talk lately about the technical problems with the new websites for the health insurance marketplaces. While these problems are real, they are likely to be resolved soon. And, as documented in a recent report by the Kaiser Family Foundation, they pale in comparison to the barriers posed by states’ failure to expand their Medicaid programs. Cathy Hope got the report bright and early this morning and has this report.

The Affordable Care Act’s Early Renewal Loophole: What’s at Stake and What States Are Doing to Close It

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The Affordable Care Act includes sweeping insurance reforms to improve the affordability and adequacy of coverage. However, some insurers have begun encouraging their customers to renew their coverage ahead of schedule in order to delay implementing these reforms for up to 12 months. In a post that originally appeared on the Commonwealth Fund blog, Christine Monahan and Sabrina Corlette describe how insurers are taking advantage of a loophole in the law and summarize states’ efforts to prohibit or limit the practice.

New Report on ACA Implications for State Network Adequacy Standards

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The Affordable Care Act promises consumers a more comprehensive set of health insurance benefits, but whether consumers are able to access those benefits depends in part on whether states adhere to or build upon the law’s network adequacy standards. CHIR researchers recently released a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded report evaluating current federal and state efforts to regulate plan networks. Max Farris provides an overview.

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.