Two state insurance regulators, Florida and Montana, have taken recent regulatory action to address concerns raised by advocacy groups about the way specialty drugs are covered in pharmacy benefit plans offered in their states. Sally McCarty provides details of those actions and related updates on the oversight of discriminatory benefit designs.
While the ACA limits the power of insurance companies to charge higher prices to consumers based on health status and other factors, the law doesn’t stop insurers from imposing a premium surcharge on tobacco users that can raise the cost of coverage by as much as 50 percent. In a new blog post for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR researchers discuss the pros and cons of tobacco rating and examine why some states have chosen to ban the practice.
The 2014 tax season will be the first time tax filers will have to report on their health insurance coverage. Marketplace consumers, particularly those receiving premium tax credits, will need to take a few more steps when completing their 2014 taxes. Sandy Ahn provides a short summary of tax forms that marketplace consumers will be using.
Although we are in the midst of the second open enrollment period under health care reform, we still don’t have good data on whether people in immigrant families are gaining access to coverage. What we do know suggests we’re making some progress, but that challenges remain. Our Georgetown colleague Sonya Schwartz gets us up to speed.
The Affordable Care Act sets out several requirements for the health insurance marketplaces to encourage insurers to improve quality and deliver better value coverage. Implementation of these provisions has been slowed by the focus on other, more urgent operational priorities, but recent federal rules put plans on notice that quality improvement standards, reporting requirements, and rankings are soon coming their way. Sabrina Corlette has this overview.
Auto-renewal through the health insurance marketplaces is an important mechanism for consumers to avoid a gap in coverage, but variations in state and federal approaches could impact consumers’ premiums and tax credits. In their latest blog post for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR experts compare the renewal processes chosen by 17 state-based marketplaces and assess their impact on consumers’ finances.
There are various routes to getting health insurance coverage for you and your family. One possible option is to have a health savings account (HSA), which must be paired with a high-deductible health plan. In today’s post, Sandy Ahn goes over the basics of a HSA and some things to consider when looking at this option.
Open enrollment in the Health Insurance Marketplaces overlaps this year with many employer plan open enrollment periods, which has prompted some employees to ask questions about how their offer of employer coverage may affect their eligibility for premium tax credits. CHIR’s JoAnn Volk and Sandy Ahn take a look at what consumers need to know, especially if they’re offered a plan that doesn’t offer much coverage.
Understanding how health insurance works can be confusing, particularly when it comes to deductibles, a topic we’ve had a lot of questions about. In today’s post, Sandy Ahn discusses how an embedded deductible works in a health plan for family coverage and compares that to an aggregate deductible. This information is also included in our online Navigator Resource Guide released last month.
December 15th marks the last day by which health insurance marketplace enrollees can actively renew their plans for January 1st start dates. If they take no action, many will be auto-renewed. In a new report, CHIR experts Sabrina Corlette, Jack Hoadley and Sandy Ahn examine the renewal process and share their findings in CHIR’s latest web video.
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.
