In preparation for the day when a progressive vision for health reform may have more supporters in the White House and Congress, a number of leading members of Congress have developed new and innovative proposals. Everyone is trying to answer the same question: How do we get the most people covered in the most affordable way? The Urban Institute might have a good answer. CHIR’s Olivia Hoppe explains.
The Trump administration is expected to shortly finalize new rules expanding the availability of association health plans (AHPs) that are exempt from key Affordable Care Act regulations and standards. In a new article for The Actuary, CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette joins co-authors Josh Hammerquist and Pete Nakahata to provide an overview of federal and state AHP regulation and estimate the impact of AHPs on the ACA-compliant individual market.
This Mother’s Day, both Congress and the Trump administration have put together a special gift basket of policies that continue to threaten access to health care for women, mothers, and families everywhere. From federal funding cuts to weaker benefit requirements, CHIR’s Rachel Schwab and Dania Palanker unwrap the presents and assess their potential impact on coverage.
In CHIRblog’s April installment of What We’re Reading, CHIR’s Olivia Hoppe digs into reports that highlight 2018 Affordable Care Act enrollment outcomes and policies that will affect 2019, the risks of short-term health plans, the impact of the ACA’s marketplaces on individuals with chronic health conditions, and the rising prevalence of health savings accounts and high-deductible health plans.
In a new California Health Care Foundation issue brief, CHIR’s Dania Palanker, Kevin Lucia, JoAnn Volk, and Rachel Schwab interviewed 21 stakeholders—including state officials, brokers and agents, insurers, and experts on California insurance markets to understand California’s short-term insurance market and how proposed federal regulatory changes could change the market. Their research finds that expanding the duration of short-term plans could increase their market and add to the destabilization of the individual health insurance market, including Covered California.
Since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, states have embraced the law to varying degrees. While some states have refused to implement the ACA and actively oppose it, other states have leaned in, stepping up to preserve the consumer protections and market rules in the wake of federal actions to weaken the law. CHIR’s Rachel Schwab examines steps that Washington State has taken to ensure that their residents can continue to obtain affordable, high quality coverage, and how other states can do the same.
Getting injured in the United States can be quite the financial headache, even with health insurance. CHIR’s Olivia Hoppe went on vacation to Berlin, Germany, and got some answers on the German health insurance experience during her trip.
As tax filing season comes to a close, CHIR’s Emily Curran discusses recent findings by the JPMorgan Chase Institute showing that many will spend their tax refunds on health care. The findings are consistent with other trends showing that as out-of-pocket costs increase, individuals defer medical care, which can lead to serious health and financial consequences.
The Trump administration has released a new final rule to govern the Affordable Care Act’s individual and small-group markets, known as the 2019 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters. The rule includes an expansion of states’ role over the ACA’s health plan benefit and affordability provisions. In her latest Expert Perspective for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health and Value Strategies Program, Sabrina Corlette untangles the rule and its implications for state decision-makers.
In CHIRblog’s March installment of What We’re Reading, CHIR’s Olivia Hoppe dives into new research that highlights premium trends from the most recent enrollment period, whether employers will continue offering subsidized coverage to employees, the use of the ACA’s tobacco surcharge in the small-group market, and the early effects of the Trump administration’s health insurance policies on coverage.
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.
