President Trump’s signature on H.R. 1, the budget reconciliation bill, will lead to upwards of 17 million people losing their health insurance and millions more with higher barriers to accessing care. At CHIR, we’ll be working to minimize the law’s harms, document its effects, and partner with those seeking to reverse its worst abuses.
The U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways & Means Health Subcommittee recently held a hearing about ways to advance digital health technologies. CHIR expert Sabrina Corlette was one of the invited panelists, warning the committee that, while these new technologies hold promise, consumers can only benefit from them if they have access to affordable, high quality health insurance.
Several state-based Marketplaces have deployed innovative programs to keep people covered during the Medicaid unwinding. In their latest post for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR’s Rachel Swindle and Sabrina Corlette assess the status of these programs and discuss the urgent need for more timely and accurate data on people transitioning from Medicaid to other forms of coverage.
April showers bring May flowers, and May was abloom with health policy research. Last month, we read about the impact of ending pandemic-related coverage policies, consumer awareness of the resumption of Medicaid renewals, and approaches to tackling rising health care costs in commercial health insurance markets.
After a three-year pause on Medicaid redeterminations, states can begin the process of removing residents from their rolls beginning on April 1. Many people who are terminated from Medicaid will be eligible for free or low-cost plans through the Affordable Care Act’s Marketplaces. To help consumers and enrollment assisters during this nationwide coverage event, we’ve updated our Navigator Resource Guide with new content about transitioning between Medicaid and private health insurance.
In most states, it’s the last week to sign up for marketplace plan that begins January 1. The Affordable Care Act expanded access to reproductive health services. As part of CHIR’s weekly installment of FAQs from our updated Navigator Resource Guide, we highlight questions about the marketplace and reproductive health care.
This month, the CHIR team celebrated the end of the school year with new health policy research. For the latest installment of our monthly research roundup, we reviewed studies on access to providers in Medicaid managed care networks, how the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) affects state cost containment reforms, and the health coverage implications of the Biden administration’s recent changes to the public charge rule for immigrant communities.
Policymakers increasingly recognize the need for alternatives to law enforcement-driven responses to behavioral health crises. In a new issue brief for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s State Health & Value Strategies program, CHIR teamed up with experts from Manatt Health to provide recommendations for a hybrid coverage and funding approach for mobile crisis services.
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, this February CHIR’s Nia Gooding reviewed some lovely studies on trends in the uninsured population, the impact of Medicaid expansion on coverage rates and healthcare access among young adults, and the effect that cost-sharing has on patient behavior and health outcomes.
State legislative sessions are typically a flurry of health policy activity. In recent years, state lawmakers have taken action to stabilize their insurance markets and increase access to coverage. But like so many other constants we have come to rely on, state legislative sessions took a hit this year from the novel coronavirus pandemic, putting current and future state policy initiatives in jeopardy.
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.
