…for higher premiums and fewer plan options on the individual market, as well as fraud and insolvency. In their latest post for the Commonwealth Fund’s To the Point blog, CHIR’s Kevin Lucia and Sabrina Corlette assess what might be in the promised executive order and its impact on consumers and health insurance markets. You can read the full post here….
…disappear. As can the students enrolled in the hundreds of religiously affiliated colleges and universities in America. The rule also opens up the door for an unknown number of companies and schools to claim a moral objection to birth control without any religious underpinnings. In an article for CNBC, CHIR’s Dania Palanker discusses how the recent regulations that expand exemptions…
…use treatment. The ACA’s Essential Health Benefits (EHB) requirement aims to make health insurance more comprehensive and access to care more affordable. The Obama administration gave states the flexibility to define the services within each EHB category by selecting a local “benchmark” plan. There is some expectation that the current administration may re-write the EHB rules, potentially through the pending…
…access to your health insurance card, contact the Marketplace Call Center (HealthCare.gov) at 1-800-318-2596 (TTY: 1-855-889-4325). In addition, some health insurance companies like Florida Blue and BlueCross BlueShield of Texas have information on their websites about how to access services and medication. In Texas, the Insurance Department has issued a bulletin recommending that all health insurers waive any restrictions or…
…consider proposals to ensure access to marketplace coverage. They find that solutions for bare counties that allow individuals to use upfront assistance to buy a fallback plan that offers comprehensive coverage would help those individuals who are affected buy and maintain comprehensive coverage while insuring healthy and competitive markets for all. You can read the full blog post here. …
…spending levels established in the bill would dramatically cut federal support for health coverage—to the tune of several hundred billion dollars by 2026. That’s in the aggregate. In the particulars, the complex formula for allocating each state’s share of the diminished pie would effect a huge transfer of federal dollars among states, making some better off in the near term,…
…comments from insurers and state officials. In the last of this three-part series, we summarize comments from the following consumer advocacy organizations: AARP American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) Families USA National Health Law Program (NHeLP) National Immigration Law Center (NILW) National Partnership for Women & Families (NPWF) Young Invincibles (YI)…
…standards, some DOIs may need explicit authorization from their legislatures. Others, while they may have the authority, lack the staff with the necessary expertise and need new resources, both financial and technological, to perform the needed plan analyses. States also may need stepped up data collection capacity and resources to conduct post-marketing oversight. These resources are unlikely to come from…
…costs for specialty medication. These states-California, Colorado, Delaware, Louisiana, Maryland, Montana, New York, and Vermont-either place limits on out-of-pocket spending or require certain plan designs that reduce out-of-pocket costs. The researchers also conducted supplementary stakeholder interviews with state marketplace officials, state regulators, insurance company representatives, and consumer advocates in four of these states (California, Colorado, Louisiana, and Montana) to assess…
…health plan premium rates and forms. HHS has twice delayed previously established deadlines for insurers to submit their marketplace plans for review and certification, leaving less time for federal and state regulators to conduct comprehensive reviews. Extended the life of non-ACA compliant health plans. Obama administration rules had allowed individuals and small employers to renew plans that did not meet…
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.
