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 2014 tax season will be the first time tax filers will have to report on their health insurance coverage. Marketplace consumers, particularly those receiving premium tax credits, will need to take a few more steps when completing their 2014 taxes. Sandy Ahn provides a short summary of tax forms that marketplace consumers will be using.
Although we are in the midst of the second open enrollment period under health care reform, we still don’t have good data on whether people in immigrant families are gaining access to coverage. What we do know suggests we’re making some progress, but that challenges remain. Our Georgetown colleague Sonya Schwartz gets us up to speed.
The Affordable Care Act sets out several requirements for the health insurance marketplaces to encourage insurers to improve quality and deliver better value coverage. Implementation of these provisions has been slowed by the focus on other, more urgent operational priorities, but recent federal rules put plans on notice that quality improvement standards, reporting requirements, and rankings are soon coming their way. Sabrina Corlette has this overview.
Auto-renewal through the health insurance marketplaces is an important mechanism for consumers to avoid a gap in coverage, but variations in state and federal approaches could impact consumers’ premiums and tax credits. In their latest blog post for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR experts compare the renewal processes chosen by 17 state-based marketplaces and assess their impact on consumers’ finances.
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.
