Both Minnesota and New York are on the path to setting up a Basic Health Program (BHP) that will provide more affordable coverage for low-income families than they may find on the marketplace. Georgetown University Center for Children and Families’ Sonya Schwartz has an update on where the BHP program stands and what it means for families.
Six years in the making, an insurance exchange finally opened last month in Florida, and it’s called “Florida Health Choices.” But it doesn’t offer consumers or small businesses actual health insurance. Sabrina Corlette takes a look at Florida’s latest health reform effort.
Navigators have been fielding a range of questions. One that comes up repeatedly is whether an individual who falls into the so-called Medicaid coverage gap and later gets a job with income that would qualify them for premium tax credits can get a special enrollment period. JoAnn Volk takes a look at the options for these individuals.
Recently, the Obama administration extended the enrollment period for people who’ve faced roadblocks in their attempts to sign up for a health plan by March 31. Some observers have compared this action to the flexibility exercised by the Bush administration in the roll out of Medicare Part D. Others say it was quite different. Our Georgetown Health Policy Institute colleague and Medicare expert Jack Hoadley cuts through the rhetoric and points us to the precedents to pay attention to.
One of the most difficult elements of enrolling in the new health insurance Marketplaces is plan selection. Consumers are often overwhelmed and confused about their options. In this guest post, former CHIR colleague and ACA expert Christine Monahan discusses a new tool that can help consumers make better plan choices.
The Obama Administration has announced that consumers who’ve faced difficulties enrolling in the new health insurance Marketplaces will get some extra time to sign up. Our colleague at Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, Tricia Brooks, has an overview of the decision.
SHOP marketplaces promise small employers features they say they want but typically have not been able to obtain, such as the ability to give their employees a greater choice of plans and make a predictable contribution towards coverage. In a new issue brief for The Commonwealth Fund, CHIR faculty examine the design decisions states have made to add value for small employers in their SHOP marketplaces.
CHIR faculty Sally McCarty, David Cusano, and Max Farris serve as technical assistance professionals (TAPS) in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation State Health Reform Assistance Network. In that capacity, they have developed the Consumer Services Toolkit to help assure that consumer service representatives in state insurance departments have critical information about the Affordable Care Act at their fingertips. Sally McCarty introduces the toolkit and its components.
In recent rulemaking, the Obama administration attempts to close a potential loophole in the Affordable Care Act – the sale of fixed indemnity insurance policies marketed to look like health insurance but leaving consumers without the same protections. Sabrina Corlette takes a look at the proposal and what it might mean for consumers.
In a proposed regulation released Friday, March 14, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services drew a line in the sand for states with laws restricting the ability of Navigators and consumer assisters to perform the jobs required of them under the ACA. Sabrina Corlette has an overview of the proposed rules and what they mean for Navigators and for states.
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.
