With the release of President Obama's plans for a second term in office, JoAnn Volk takes a look at the President's blueprint—and what it could mean for consumers and the future of the Affordable Care Act.
To help make coverage more comprehensive, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires insurers to cover a minimum set of health insurance benefits, known as “essential health benefits.” JoAnn Volk and Max Levin provide an update on how many states have selected their essential health benefits benchmark plan and help translate what it means for consumers.
As of September 23, consumers will begin to receive a new summary of benefits and coverage form that describes what's covered by their insurance policy. Sabrina Corlette welcomes these new forms and discusses how they were developed as well as their potential to help tame the “wild west” of shopping for health insurance coverage.
A handful of states are taking innovative approaches to the regulation of health insurance premium rates to help make coverage more affordable. Sabrina Corlette takes a look at these new strategies and the impact they could have on the cost of health care.
Thanks to the support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CHIRblog will feature profiles of everyday people across the country who will – or have already – benefited from new consumer protections under the Affordable Care Act. Sabrina Corlette tells us about Joshua and his family's struggle to obtain affordable, quality insurance that will cover the care he needs for his heart syndrome in the first personal story in our new series, “Real Stories, Real Reforms.”
As stakeholders wrap up their comments on ACA proposed rules published last month, JoAnn Volk takes another look at where things stand in the market reform and EHB rules.
A new study in the journal Health Affairs finds that the ACA's dependent coverage provision has not only increased coverage for young adults, it's improved their access to health care services. Sabrina Corlette takes a look.
With the deadline looming for comments on the Office of Personnel Management's (OPM) recent proposed rule implementing the Multi-State Plan Program, Christine Monahan poses three key questions stakeholders are thinking about.
Today, the Kaiser Family Foundation—in partnership with CHIR, the American Cancer Society, and the National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable—released a new report exploring how private insurers are applying cost-sharing for colorectal cancer screening, such as colonoscopies. Kevin Lucia, one of the report's authors, discusses what the findings mean for this new benefit under the Affordable Care Act.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is moving forward with model state laws to implement the ACA's sweeping insurance reforms. Sabrina Corlette takes a look.
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.
