The latest financial filings with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners show that 2015 was a rough year for the CO-OP plans created under the ACA. CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette takes a look at some of the reasons the CO-OPs have struggled.
When the administration finalized Marketplace regulations for 2017 and beyond earlier this week, it officially expanded roles for Navigators. While much of what CHIRblog had previously described under the proposed rule from November has been retained in the final rules, Sandy Ahn provides a brief update of the additional Navigator duties.
The Affordable Care Act brought the promise of affordable coverage to many lawfully present immigrants but many continue to face challenges when applying through healthcare.gov. Our colleague Sonya Schwartz of Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families shares the top takeaways from her recently published report, which provides a roadmap that the marketplaces can use to to smooth the path to enrollment for immigrant families.
The administration recently announced that it will require verifying documents from consumers with a qualifying life change for special enrollment periods. For consumers, this means more work and likely a bumpy road to accessing health insurance through healthcare.gov. Sandy Ahn takes a look at this change and what it may mean for consumers.
Beginning in 2017, states can pursue “innovation waivers” under section 1332 of the Affordable Care Act. These waivers allow states to pursue broad alternatives or targeted fixes to the ACA. In their latest blog post for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR researchers Kevin Lucia, Justin Giovannelli, Sean Miskell and Ashley Williams examine the waiver applications that have been submitted so far, as well as activity in states considering a waiver.
While Old Man Winter barrels down on us with cold and snow, what better time to get your documents together for tax filing season? For marketplace consumers, you’ll need a couple of documents to file your tax return. CHIR’s Sandy Ahn provides some information on what you’ll need.
Last week, updated federal poverty levels were published in the federal register. Our colleague Tricia Brooks of Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families discusses the implications for consumers in the health insurance marketplaces, Medicaid, and CHIP.
For the most part, the ACA tries to align the ways that Medicaid and the health insurance marketplaces determine eligibility for their respective programs. But every once in a while, there’s a risk that someone might fall through the cracks. This initially appeared to be the case when our colleague Tricia Brooks was asked to help with a complex family situation in which a child seemed to be caught between the differences between each program’s rules, putting him at risk of being uninsured. Fortunately, Tricia was able to unearth a little known but important rule that helps kids get the coverage they’re entitled to.
Welcome to 2016. With first votes being cast in the 2016 election cycle less than two weeks away and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) promising to unveil an ACA replacement plan to steer the 2016 party agenda, the policy debate on health reform is far from over. We here at CHIR are keeping an eye on reform proposals, and in this post, CHIR’s Hannah Ellison examines various proposals to improve affordability of coverage under the ACA.
The failure of 12 of the Affordable Care Act’s CO-OP plans reveals much about the huge barriers facing new companies entering the highly concentrated health insurance market. Sabrina Corlette takes a look at some of the lessons that policymakers – and regulators with oversight over the proposed mergers in the health insurance industry – can draw from the CO-OPs’ experiences.
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.
