This week, CHIR is releasing an online version of the Navigator Resource Guide, with close to 300 searchable FAQs and easy-to-read background information on key health insurance and marketplace issues. Although designed with the needs of Navigators in mind, the Guide is a hands-on, practical resource for anyone who needs to communicate with consumers about the Affordable Care Act.
The second open enrollment period for the health insurance marketplaces, or OE2, is mere days away. Our colleague at Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, Tricia Brooks, takes a look behind the curtain and gives us a glimpse of what we can expect.
As the health insurance marketplaces prepare for the second year of operation under the Affordable Care Act, IT issues are driving many states’ decisions on whether to operate a state-based marketplace. In their latest blog post for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR experts Sarah Dash and Kevin Lucia share findings on state IT transitions and major policy actions going into 2015.
During the past few months, CHIR faculty have examined the proliferation of narrow provider networks associated with plans on the health insurance marketplaces. Here, Sally McCarty discusses lessons learned and potential solutions offered by two faculty work products.
Affordable Care Act watchers are bracing themselves for another round of health plan cancellations this fall, even though Obama Administration policy allows for these plans to be continued. CHIR expert Sabrina Corlette discusses issues for consumers transitioning off of these plans and into new coverage.
Local press in D.C. recently reported on a “turf battle” between the health insurance marketplace and DC’s Department of Insurance over the review of proposed rate increases. But their roles are more complementary than conflicting. Sabrina Corlette examines how the Affordable Care Act envisions the marketplaces and state insurance departments working together to help consumers obtain better, more affordable health insurance.
A major insurance company in Minnesota recently announced it would withdraw from the state’s health insurance marketplace. What does this decision mean for the marketplace and the consumers it serves? Sabrina Corlette offers up her take.
Last week the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) published final rules for the health insurance marketplaces and participating insurers to renew consumers into coverage for 2015. Our colleague from Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, Tricia Brooks, discusses what the rule means for consumers and their families.
While most state-based marketplaces in 2014 are rightly focused on the operational challenges of connecting people with coverage, over time technical improvements will allow them to prioritize providing better quality, more cost-effective care to enrollees. CHIR experts Sabrina Corlette and Sarah Dash, in their latest blog post for the Commonwealth Fund, discuss the opportunities and challenges for states working to implement the ACA’s quality improvement initiatives.
Health plans have been increasingly using tiered pharmacy benefit designs. These new designs raise challenges for consumers and the state insurance regulators responsible for reviewing and approving plans for sale. CHIR faculty members Sally McCarty and David Cusano explore these issues in a new brief for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health Reform Assistance Network.
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.
