Medical students are taught to care for the whole person. Shouldn’t that include care for the patient’s wallet, as well? As insurers increasingly shift costs to enrollees, Georgetown University medical student Joshua Barrett considers the role of the physician – and medical education – in helping patients stay both physically and financially healthy.
CHIR is pleased to release an updated online Navigator Guide on Private Health Insurance and Health Insurance Marketplaces with searchable frequently asked questions (FAQs) and easy-to-read background information on key health insurance and marketplace issues. With Open Enrollment just a few days away, get your Guide on!
Yesterday, the Health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee had a hearing on H.R. 1624, a bill that if enacted, would repeal an ACA provision changing the definition of small employer to 1-100 employees. The bill would also allow states to determine the definition of the small group market; all states currently define the small group market as employers with 1-50 employees. CHIR’s Sandy Ahn shares highlights of the hearing and the debate over the impact on small businesses.
While open enrollment for 2015 has ended, insurers and marketplaces alike are gearing up for 2016 with federal guidance outlined under the 2016 Letter to Issuers and 2016 Benefits and Payment Parameters Final Rule. Sandy Ahn summarizes some of the changes in store for 2016 health plans that affect consumers.
There are various routes to getting health insurance coverage for you and your family. One possible option is to have a health savings account (HSA), which must be paired with a high-deductible health plan. In today’s post, Sandy Ahn goes over the basics of a HSA and some things to consider when looking at this option.
Open enrollment in the Health Insurance Marketplaces overlaps this year with many employer plan open enrollment periods, which has prompted some employees to ask questions about how their offer of employer coverage may affect their eligibility for premium tax credits. CHIR’s JoAnn Volk and Sandy Ahn take a look at what consumers need to know, especially if they’re offered a plan that doesn’t offer much coverage.
Understanding how health insurance works can be confusing, particularly when it comes to deductibles, a topic we’ve had a lot of questions about. In today’s post, Sandy Ahn discusses how an embedded deductible works in a health plan for family coverage and compares that to an aggregate deductible. This information is also included in our online Navigator Resource Guide released last month.
One of the goals of the Affordable Care Act is to make health insurance more affordable and accessible, in part by increasing health plan competition. In their latest blog post for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR faculty Sean Miskell, Kevin Lucia and Justin Giovannelli find that competition is in fact increasing, and consumers shopping on the state-based marketplaces have more choices among insurers than they did last year.
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.
A recent Urban Institute study found that over half (57 percent) of uninsured parents are Hispanic. Our colleague from Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families, Sonya Schwartz, discusses some of the factors that limit the accessibility of coverage for Hispanic and Spanish-speaking individuals, and offers strategies to fix the problems.
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.
