Tag: nondiscrimination

Third Time is the Charm? Proposed Regulations Strengthen Nondiscrimination Protections for Health Insurance Enrollees

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For the third time, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights has proposed rules to effectuate the application of civil rights protections to the health care industry under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act. If finalized, the regulation will have significant implications for health insurers and provide important nondiscrimination protections for insurance enrollees.

Stakeholder Perspectives on CMS’s 2023 Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters: State Insurance Departments and Marketplaces

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After the Biden administration issued the proposed 2023 “Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters,” several hundred stakeholders provided feedback on the new set of rules governing the ACA’s marketplaces and health insurance standards. To better understand the impact of the proposed rules, CHIR reviewed a sample of stakeholder comments. For the third blog in our series, Rachel Schwab summarizes comments submitted by state departments of insurance and state-based marketplaces.

ACA Section 1557 as a Tool for Anti-racist Health Care

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The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has narrowed racial and ethnic health disparities. But significant gaps persist, driven in no small part by structural racism. In a new piece for Health Affairs Forefront, Jamille Fields Allsbrook and CHIR faculty Katie Keith discuss how the Biden administration can use its existing authority under Section 1557 of the ACA and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to better ensure anti-racist health care and insurance.

Unpacking Colorado’s New Guidance on Transgender Health

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The Affordable Care Act improved insurance coverage of gender-affirming care, but insurers still impose coverage restrictions that result in discriminatory barriers for transgender people seeking health care services. In a new post for the Commonwealth Fund, Katie Keith reviews the history and current landscape of insurance coverage of gender-affirming care, including Colorado’s changes to its Essential Health Benefits benchmark plan that are aimed at closing coverage gaps.

Amid Market Uncertainty, Trump Administration Retreats from Health Plan Oversight

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In mid-April, the Trump administration announced it would stop monitoring marketplace plans for compliance with several important federal protections and instead defer to states. In their latest blog post for The Commonwealth Fund, Justin Giovannelli and Kevin Lucia explain the new changes to insurance oversight, and assess the potential impact of this federal deregulation for states and consumers.

Comparing Nondiscrimination Protections under the ACA

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HHS released the final Section 1557 rule, completing the suite of non-discrimination rules that constitute some of the most dramatic recent changes in health insurance regulation. JoAnn Volk looks at how the rules stack up in protecting consumers with pre-existing conditions.

Florida Complaint Should be Welcomed by Regulators and Advocates

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A recent complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights against four Florida insurers targets them for violating the Affordable Care Act’s prohibition against discrimination. CHIR expert Sally McCarty evaluates the complaint and its implications for consumers and state insurance regulators.

Some States Consider Nondiscrimination Requirements

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In implementing the Affordable Care Act, state regulators may increasingly look for ways to ensure that health insurance does not discriminate against certain groups of individuals, such as people living with HIV, older Americans, and even women. In this spirit, Katie Keith describes how Colorado and the District of Columbia each took recent steps to prohibit insurers from discriminating against enrollees based on gender identity and sexual orientation.

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.