Insurers and other critics have called on the Obama Administration to shorten the 3-month grace period for paying overdue health plan premiums, asserting that consumers are abusing it. But as documented by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Tara Straw, such concerns reflect a misunderstanding of how grace periods work and are refuted by enrollment and disenrollment data.
We are well into the third tax year of ACA premium tax credits and the individual shared responsibility requirement. The IRS recently released a report on 2014 income tax filings that includes data on the first year of the PTC and ISRP. We analyzed this data to look at the tax credits and payments by income brackets and found that millions of low-income tax filers benefited from the PTC in 2014 – but millions of low-income tax filers also paid the ISRP, indicating that a very vulnerable population still lacks coverage.
The agency running the federal health insurance marketplace announced on September 30 they would provide information on the size of health plans’ provider networks in just four states “at some point” during the coming open enrollment season. This is a dramatic roll back from the anticipated availability of the system in 34 states in 2017. Sabrina Corlette takes a look at the latest guidance and what it means for consumers.
Change in life is unavoidable: people move, get married, change jobs and have babies. Special enrollment periods (SEPs) allow people experiencing such life changes to access marketplace coverage, often with financial assistance. Unfortunately the majority of people don’t know about them. CHIR’s Sandy Ahn takes a look at SEPs, including the administration’s current approach to SEPs and the missed opportunities to raise overall awareness of them, strengthen the risk pool, and reduce the number of uninsured.
On Monday, September 26th, CHIR’s very own Sabrina Corlette spoke at a briefing on the future of ACA marketplaces put on by the Alliance for Health Reform. Ms. Corlette joined representatives from Anthem, the American Action Forum, and Covered California to discuss the forecast for 2017 and potential policy solutions to expand coverage and access in the individual market.
The latest round of news about insurance company exits and price increases in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces has sparked more hand-wringing about the future of the law. But to truly assess how the law is working, we need to remember where we were, before the ACA, and how far we have come. Sabrina Corlette takes us down memory lane.
A graph has been making the rounds on the internet comparing cumulative increases in deductibles since 2011 to growth in inflation, worker earnings and health insurance premiums since it was posted as part of a Wall Street Journal blog. But the graph only tells part of the story – the part that occurred after 2011. The story of increasing deductibles in employer based health insurance is a story that is over a decade in the making.
Narrow network plans, or plans with a limited network of providers, present problems for consumers across the various coverage programs. In May, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released the final rule setting network adequacy standards for Medicaid and CHIP managed care plans. The new rule requires states to set quantitative standards for network adequacy; but since these standards don’t apply uniformly to other federal programs, network adequacy – and access to essential health services – varies greatly for consumers based on what program they fall under.
The Obama Administration has delayed a promised rollout of a new network size rating system on healthcare.gov. Sabrina Corlette takes a look at the proposed ratings, the reasons for delay, and what it all means for consumers.
In a turbulent year for the Affordable Care Act, health insurers’ second-quarter earnings calls and financial filings can offer a glimpse of how they are faring on the ACA marketplaces and strategies for 2017. In their latest publication for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR experts Sabrina Corlette, Kevin Lucia and Emily Curran share key takeaways from these key insurance industry financial reports.
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.
