The resumption of Medicaid eligibility redeterminations at the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency could result in millions of people losing their Medicaid coverage. The state and federal health insurance marketplaces can play a significant role helping many of these individuals transition to subsidized private insurance, but they need to start planning now.
COVID-19 survivors may experience new symptoms well after their initial infection. Health systems offer these patients help with managing their conditions, but COVID-19 is a novel disease, and research demonstrating effectiveness of treatments for many post-COVID conditions is sparse. Karen Davenport takes a look at some of insurance implications of the dearth of information on “long COVID.”
Federal law now requires hospitals to publish the prices they negotiate with private insurers, yet many of them are not complying. In this post for the Health Affairs Blog, CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette and Maanasa Kona and Marilyn Bartlett of the National Academy for State Health Policy discuss ways that state health benefit purchasers, such as state employee plans, can help increase hospital compliance.
Last month, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced $20 million in grant funding for the 21 state-based marketplaces (SBM). The federal funding, allocated under the American Rescue Plan, will allow SBMs to modernize their technology platforms, outreach programs, and other systems and operations to ensure compliance with federal requirements, including the temporary expansion of marketplace subsidies. CHIR’s Rachel Schwab takes a look at some of the initiatives SBMs are planning with the new grant funding.
In our newest monthly roundup of health policy research, CHIR’s Rachel Swindle reviews studies on consumer knowledge of marketplace options, the consequences of allowing the American Rescue Plan’s marketplace subsidies to expire, and downstream impacts of cost sharing trends.
People shopping for health insurance online are often directed to websites using misleading or deceptive practices to steer them to products that are not compliant with the Affordable Care Act, such as fixed indemnity policies. In a new post for the Commonwealth Fund’s To the Point blog, CHIR’s Dania Palanker and Kevin Lucia discuss the marketing of limited plans as a primary form of coverage and the risks these products pose to consumers.
The Biden administration continues to put its stamp on the Affordable Care Act marketplaces with new rules to expand enrollment and consumer assistance, increase plan oversight, and reverse several Trump administration policies. In her latest post for the State Health & Value Strategies program, CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette highlights the issues of particular importance to state marketplaces and departments of insurance.
This month the Biden administration released a second rule implementing the No Surprises Act, the new federal law banning balance bills in certain care settings and circumstances starting in 2022. In an Expert Perspective for the State Health & Value Strategies project, CHIR experts JoAnn Volk and Sabrina Corlette review provisions of the proposed rules of particular import to state-based marketplaces and state insurance regulators.
Amidst high and rising health care costs, recent federal regulations require hospitals and health plans to publicly post their prices. Such data can be useful for those seeking to control costs and improve affordability, but lack of compliance with the new requirements and data accessibility have made analysis difficult. To gain insights into the potential for this data and generate ideas for how to optimize the information to help reduce health system costs, CHIR convened a meeting of health care researchers, purchasers, and insurance regulators from around the country.
Congressional leaders requested input from the public on how to design a federal public health insurance option. CHIR’s Christine Monahan compiled and reviewed dozens of publicly available responses and shares key takeaways, as well as links so you can take a closer 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.
