High drug prices have been in the news lately, and consumers are bearing an ever-greater burden of those drug prices through health plan cost-sharing. In their latest post for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR researchers Sabrina Corlette, Ashley Williams and Justin Giovannelli analyze state policies to try to protect consumers from high drug costs.
While many consumers with marketplace coverage will be eligible for automatic renewal, there are many reasons for all consumers to shop to renew this year. For example, price changes to health plans as well as changes to the health plans themselves will impact the amount of premium tax credits and coverage for many consumers. We go over the reasons why all consumers should shop to renew this open enrollment.
The Affordable Care Act’s new health insurance marketplaces could be critical sources of data about how people access and use coverage. Yet, to date, the marketplaces have released varying degrees of information, with little uniformity or consensus over what data should be collected and how. In our latest post for The Commonwealth Fund, CHIR researchers Sean Miskell, Justin Giovannelli and Kevin Lucia examine data collection and reporting by the health insurance marketplaces.
A new report from CHIR researchers Sandy Ahn, Jack Hoadley and Sabrina Corlette revisits six state-based marketplaces that took varying approaches to renewing enrollees into 2015 coverage. The report examines how their different approaches affected enrollment and the consumer experience, and shares lessons learned for the next round of marketplace renewals.
Special enrollment is available to individuals who experience qualifying events allowing them to enroll into marketplace coverage. A new issue brief co-authored by CHIR’s Sandy Ahn and Kevin Lucia, along with authors from the Urban Institute, found that special enrollment systems and procedures were still a work in progress in five state-based marketplaces last year. Sandy and Kevin also discuss additional SEPs available this year.
The Affordable Care Act sets out several requirements for the health insurance marketplaces to encourage insurers to improve quality and deliver better value coverage. Implementation of these provisions has been slowed by the focus on other, more urgent operational priorities, but recent federal rules put plans on notice that quality improvement standards, reporting requirements, and rankings are soon coming their way. Sabrina Corlette has this overview.
December 15th marks the last day by which health insurance marketplace enrollees can actively renew their plans for January 1st start dates. If they take no action, many will be auto-renewed. In a new report, CHIR experts Sabrina Corlette, Jack Hoadley and Sandy Ahn examine the renewal process and share their findings in CHIR’s latest web video.
While the Affordable Care Act provided significant start-up funds for the development of the new health insurance marketplaces, by January 1, 2015 all the state-based marketplaces must be self-sustaining. In their latest blog post for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR experts Sarah Dash, Kevin Lucia, Justin Giovannelli and Sean Miskell provide an update on states’ approaches to marketplace financing and sustainability.
As the health insurance marketplaces prepare for the second year of operation under the Affordable Care Act, IT issues are driving many states’ decisions on whether to operate a state-based marketplace. In their latest blog post for the Commonwealth Fund, CHIR experts Sarah Dash and Kevin Lucia share findings on state IT transitions and major policy actions going into 2015.
Local press in D.C. recently reported on a “turf battle” between the health insurance marketplace and DC’s Department of Insurance over the review of proposed rate increases. But their roles are more complementary than conflicting. Sabrina Corlette examines how the Affordable Care Act envisions the marketplaces and state insurance departments working together to help consumers obtain better, more affordable health insurance.
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.
