2014 brings sweeping new health insurance protections for consumers, but for those reforms to be realized state insurance regulators need to make sure health plans comply with the law. A recent report released by the NAIC consumer representatives details best practices and provides recommendations to states to improve enforcement and better protect consumers. Sabrina Corlette has this overview.
On the eve of the December 23 deadline to sign up for health insurance coverage, the Administration announced that people whose previous health plans had been cancelled will now be allowed to enroll in alternative, bare-bones coverage. Consumers and those charged with helping them enroll – navigators, brokers, application assisters and others – are likely to have questions about the change. Sabrina Corlette provides answers here.
Choosing the health plan that best meets your needs is no easy task, with much at stake in terms of both financial protection and access to care. In a new issue brief for The Commonwealth Fund, Christine Monahan, Sarah Dash, Kevin Lucia, and Sabrina Corlette examine the actions taken by state-based health insurance marketplaces to simplify health plan choices.
Now that healthcare.gov is finally working, attention is turning to challenges people might face as they start seeking health care services. In his latest blog, Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Jack Hoadley discusses how Medicare officials responded to post-enrollment glitches in Part D – and provides some lessons learned for the ACA roll out.
Did the President tell the truth when he told the American people: “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”? Are health plans narrowing their provider networks and if so, what does it mean for consumers and the state officials charged with protecting them? CHIR experts Sabrina Corlette and Sally McCarty tackle these thorny issues in their latest blog.
Connecting people with health coverage is a complicated process, and the last few weeks have demonstrated how challenging it can be. But helping people maintain that coverage may be even more challenging. In this blog, Tricia Brooks of Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families discusses how policies relating to premium collection can have a critical impact on families’ ability to stay covered.
The Thanksgiving weekend brought news for health care consumers to be thankful for. Healthcare.gov successfully handled 2 million visitors in 2 days. And the New York Times reported further good news about health care costs. Elissa Dines takes a closer look.
The Basic Health Program was included in the Affordable Care Act to provide states with an alternative coverage option for low-income adults. The Obama Administration recently proposed rules to govern the program. Our colleague Sonya Schwartz at Georgetown’s Center for Children for Children and Families suggests a few improvements to make the program more effective for consumers.
Implementation of the President’s proposed fix for health insurance policy cancellations rests with state officials and insurance companies. Many states opting not to pursue the policy fix are those who have invested the most in the success of the Affordable Care Act. In their latest blog for The Commonwealth Fund, Kevin Lucia, Katie Keith, and Sabrina Corlette evaluate the policy and legal factors underpinning states’ decisions.
Almost two months into open enrollment, Navigators and other consumer assisters must field a multitude of questions about plan options inside the marketplace and out, how individual and employer-sponsored coverage may change as a result of the ACA, and whether consumers have the coverage they need to satisfy the individual mandate. Today, CHIR released a Navigator Resource Guide that helps Navigators explain key insurance and marketplace concepts and accurately answer a wide range of questions.
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.
