The current tax filing season, for the 2014 tax year, is the first in which consumers will need to indicate whether or not they had coverage in 2014, or face a potential tax penalty for failure to have coverage throughout the year. JoAnn Volk takes a look at the affordability exemption and what consumers need to know.
The second open enrollment period (often called OE2) under the Affordable Care Act has come to its formal close. Our colleague at Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, Tricia Brooks, provides her review of OE2 – and some tips on how the marketplaces could improve their performance for next year.
We’ve wrapped up the Affordable Care Act’s second open enrollment season and sign-ups exceeded expectations, in large part thanks to the hard work of navigators and assisters. As part of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-funded project, navigators in five states send us their toughest and most complicated cases. To help others facing similar issues, we’ve created a new compilation of our most frequently asked questions during open enrollment. The Georgetown technical assistance team shares it here.
Under the Affordable Care Act, new rules for counting household size and income for purposes of Medicaid and CHIP eligibility were aligned with the calculation of Marketplace subsidies. Following up on a primer she drafted on the basics of MAGI, our colleague at Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, Tricia Brooks, drills down on income eligibility for Medicaid, CHIP, and premium tax credits.
As consumers shop for health insurance, many may be offered coverage, such as “excepted benefit” plans or short-term, limited duration policies that fall outside of the protections required in the Affordable Care Act. CHIR’s Kayla Connor shares a primer on these policies, published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health Reform Assistance Network.
Health insurance agents and brokers drove a significant portion of enrollment into the Affordable Care Act’s marketplaces in the first year, and continue to play an important role this year. In an issue brief released this week by Georgetown’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms and the Urban Institute, researchers document some of the early barriers to more robust broker engagement with the marketplaces, as well as opportunities for more effective partnerships in the future. Sabrina Corlette has this overview.
CHIR faculty who provide technical assistance to states through Robert Wood Johnson’s State Health Reform Assistance Network have updated their ACA Consumer Services Manual with timely information about premium tax credits and the reconciliation process. Sally McCarty describes the updates here.
Congress is debating controversial legislation to shift the Affordable Care Act’s definition of full-time work from 30 hours to 40 hours per week. CHIR’s Mason Weber digs into the research on what such a move could mean for workers and employers.
Some employer health plans have begun to respond to dramatic differences in the cost of medical procedures through reference pricing. CHIR’s Kayla Connor shares a new primer prepared for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health Reform Assistance Network that helps insurance regulators understand the latest federal rules on reference pricing and potential consumer protection issues.
Your employer may want to help you meet your New Year’s resolutions to lose weight or get fit by providing you with some financial incentives. JoAnn Volk takes a look at the current state of workplace wellness programs and recent action at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).
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.
