The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that they had fixed a technical glitch in healthcare.gov that may have cost people thousands of dollars in subsidies. Our colleague at Georgetown’s Center for Children and Families, Tricia Brooks, helped to identify the problem early on and offers this take on what CMS can do to help the people affected by the error.
November 15th marks the start not only of open enrollment into the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance marketplaces, but also of the NAIC’s Fall National Meeting. And many of the same issues on the mind of health insurance consumers are also priorities for state insurance department officials. Sabrina Corlette will be attending the meeting and has this preview.
Now that open enrollment into the new health insurance marketplaces is over, the only way people can enroll in marketplace coverage is by qualifying for a special enrollment period because of a life change such as a birth, marriage, a move, or a divorce. Healthcare.gov recently made available a new “screener tool” to help consumers determine whether they qualify. CHIR’s Sabrina Corlette took the new tool for a test drive and has a few suggested improvements.
The Obama administration recently announced that the health insurance Marketplaces can offer consumers retroactive coverage and financial assistance, if technical problems prevented them from enrolling. But the administration’s guidance also leaves some unanswered questions. Sabrina Corlette takes a look and helps us understand what the new policy actually means for consumers.
New improvements to healthcare.gov are making it easier for consumers to report life changes, correct errors, and change plans. Recent guidance from the federal Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight details the site’s new functionality. Sabrina Corlette takes a look.
Now that healthcare.gov is finally working, attention is turning to challenges people might face as they start seeking health care services. In his latest blog, Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Jack Hoadley discusses how Medicare officials responded to post-enrollment glitches in Part D – and provides some lessons learned for the ACA roll out.
The Thanksgiving weekend brought news for health care consumers to be thankful for. Healthcare.gov successfully handled 2 million visitors in 2 days. And the New York Times reported further good news about health care costs. Elissa Dines takes a closer look.
The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means held an oversight hearing during which they questioned CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner on the technical issues Healthcare.gov has faced since its launch. But the hearing went well beyond Website problems. Elissa Dines tuned in and offers this report.
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.
