The Oregon Health Authority recently released its Public Option Implementation Report, stemming from a legislative directive to develop a plan to make a public health insurance option available in the individual (and potentially small group) market. CHIR’s Christine Monahan takes a look at what’s in the new report and what’s next for the Oregon public option initiative.
One of the key goals of the Affordable Care Act is to make health insurance coverage more affordable and consumer-friendly by managing competition among health insurers through the creation of health insurance exchanges. A new report from researchers at the Urban Institute and CHIR released by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation explores state actions to encourage or require participation on exchanges, and early indications of the level of competition among health insurers. Kevin Lucia highlights some of the findings from the report.
An interesting thing happened in Oregon last week after the Division of Insurance publicly posted insurers’ proposed premium rates for 2014. After seeing their competitors’ prices, two insurers asked the Division to allow them to reduce their proposed rates. Sabrina Corlette examines these recent developments and their implications for consumers.
A new report from Oregon examines the effect of that state’s rate review program – and proposes innovative ways to use rate review to encourage higher quality, more efficient health care. Sabrina Corlette takes a look.
In our most recent report, Kevin Lucia, Christine Monahan, and Sabrina Corlette assess attitudes towards and trends in self-insurance for smaller employers through interviews with stakeholders in 10 study states. Christine reviews the report’s findings and implications.
To help make coverage more comprehensive, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires insurers to cover a minimum set of health insurance benefits, known as “essential health benefits.” JoAnn Volk and Max Levin provide an update on how many states have selected their essential health benefits benchmark plan and help translate what it means for consumers.
A handful of states are taking innovative approaches to the regulation of health insurance premium rates to help make coverage more affordable. Sabrina Corlette takes a look at these new strategies and the impact they could have on the cost of health care.
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.
