Millions of Americans rely on Health Care Sharing Ministries (HCSM) in lieu of insurance to provide a financial cushion if they get sick or injured. But data from HCSM public filings suggest that reliance may be built on a shaky foundation. CHIR’s Nadia Stovicek and JoAnn Volk share their findings.
CHIR’s summer reading list includes the latest health policy literature. In July, we read about the disparities in medical debt burdens, policy interventions to reduce choice errors in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace, and the affordability of Marketplace health insurance under subsidy expansion.
While the federal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) ended in May, the PHE declaration for the opioid crisis continues. Opioid overdose deaths remain alarmingly high, and the Biden administration recently bolstered the federal government’s response to the opioid crisis with new proposed rules to strengthen access to treatment. CHIR’s Rachel Swindle and Kristen Ukeomah explore this proposal as well as other recent state and federal policy changes that aim to reduce barriers to evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorder.
Winter is finally over, and health policy research is in full bloom. In March, we read about disparities in health insurance coverage for people of color, medical debt, and preventive service usage among private health plan enrollees.
Happy New Year! The holiday season may be over, but health policy researchers continue to bestow gifts onto our field. In December, we read about disruptions in health insurance coverage, the uninsured population, and gaps in provider network oversight. This roundup will highlight key findings of these articles, as well as their significance for our work.
The leaves may be changing, but the importance of health policy research is evergreen. Last month, we read up on the results of a survey on the state of U.S. health insurance coverage, enrollment patterns on- and off-marketplace, and the impact of marketplace enrollment strategies.
In a new post for the Commonwealth Fund’s To the Point blog, Katie Keith highlights several Affordable Care Act requirements that have not been fully utilized by insurers — resulting in gaps that exacerbate disparities. The post identifies examples where insurers and regulators could do more to turn commitment on health equity and racial justice into action.
The “family glitch,” a loophole in federal rules, bars millions of people from subsidized coverage because they have access to a family member’s employer-sponsored coverage The glitch is easy to fix, through either regulation or legislation. CHIR exposes that a paper released this week claiming a fix is illegal and harmful is based on a faulty presumption.
The family glitch bars millions of people from accessing reduced premiums and cost-sharing through the marketplaces because a family member has an offer of employer coverage. In their latest post for the Commonwealth Fund To the Point blog, Christina Goe and CHIR’s Dania Palanker delve into the costs of the family glitch to low- and middle-income families.
April is Minority Health Month, a good time to consider ways to reduce the wide disparities in health insurance access and coverage that particularly affect people of color. For the National Latino Week of Action, CHIR looks at changes in the uninsured rate among the Latino/Hispanic community, and identifies opportunities to build on coverage gains thanks to the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
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.
