…policies that expand access to comprehensive and affordable health insurance and health care services. Since the Trump administration began rolling back major provisions of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), numerous states have stepped up to ensure market stability and robust consumer protections. State legislative sessions are thus typically a flurry of health policy activity. In recent years, state lawmakers have…
By Joan Alker, Georgetown University Center for Children & Families The year 2020 is certainly going to be one to remember in the history books. The current recession associated with the pandemic is undoubtedly going to result in more people enrolling in public coverage and, sadly, will also drive up the uninsured rate in the U.S (especially in states that…
On June 25, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce released the results of a year-long investigation into the practices of the Short-Term Limited Duration Insurance (STLDI) industry. The Committee looked into 14 companies that sell or assist consumers in enrolling in short-term plans. Its findings confirm what we have known for some time – short-term plans are a bad…
…COVID-19 Pandemic for Health Insurance Coverage. The Commonwealth Fund, June 23, 2020. With the unemployment rate struggling to return to normal amidst the current public health and economic crises, researchers at the Commonwealth Fund and survey research firm SSRS explored the early impact of COVID-19 on insurance coverage, conducting a national survey of U.S. What It Finds Of the respondents…
…and the Urban Institute share findings from interviews with executives at 25 health insurance companies conducted between April and June 2020. The companies included for-profit insurers operating nationally or across multiple states; nonprofits operating regionally or locally and at least one local insurer in each of the following states: California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Louisiana, New York, Virginia, and Washington. Their…
…align with what commercial insurers pay. Interviewees perceived few differences between these insurers’ plans and those of traditional commercial insurers today. Early skepticism over Medicaid insurers’ commercial market participation has largely dissipated. In fact, most interviewees have positive perceptions of Medicaid insurers and credit the insurers for increasing plan choice and affordability. To learn more, download the full report here….
By Sara Rosenbaum, Sabrina Corlette, and Alexander Somodevilla The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires that most health insurers and employer health plans cover certain preventive services without cost-sharing, including vaccines recommended by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). This requirement has been of enormous importance to families given the high cost of fully immunizing children against vaccine-preventable disease,…
…year, insurers are making projections about health care prices and utilization in the middle of a pandemic and its economic fallout, before anyone has sufficient data to understand fully what the impact of COVID-19 might be (although a recently released 2021 health care cost model from the Society of Actuaries is now available to help users assess a range of…
…many of these emergency orders are about to expire. This means that most states’ COVID-19-related coverage mandates will also expire. Some have already. Yet, whether or not we experience a “second wave” of the virus in the months ahead, SARS-CoV-2 is likely to be with us for a long time. In their latest post for the Commonwealth Fund’s To the…
…threshold. And though most forms of HRAs require individuals to have other coverage (e.g., a group health plan or an Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliant individual market plan), individuals offered an excepted benefit HRA could opt to use it to buy an HCSM instead of enrolling in their employer’s health plan. One HCSM marketing to employers, Sedera, suggests member companies…
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.
