2013
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IT Contractors Shift Blame at Energy and Commerce Hearing
By Elissa Dines, Center on Health Insurance Reforms The House Committee on Energy and Commerce held an oversight hearing on Thursday, October 24th during which they took the testimony of three private contractors responsible for building the new federal health insurance siteHealthcare.gov, along with the contractor handling the paper applications. The Committee called on the contractors – CGI Federal, Optum/QSSI, Equifax…
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CMS Releases Guidance on Ensuring a Smooth Transition for ‘Stairstep’ Kids
By Wesley Prater As I discussed in a previous blog, Section 2001(a)(5)(B) of the Affordable Care Act aligns the minimum eligibility level for children across all age groups. Thus, some states will need to transition children from coverage in their separate CHIP programs to coverage in Medicaid on January 1, 2014. The provision is intended…
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Back to Basics: A Reminder of What the ACA is All About
As Congress launches oversight hearings and the media report new technical problems with healthcare.gov on an almost daily basis, it can be hard to remember what the Affordable Care Act is all about. But, as the White House said the other day, the ACA is not a website, and a new poll out from Gallup brings that fact home in a…
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Are Federal Call Centers Up To The Task Of Enrolling Millions In Health Plans?
Kaiser Health News October 24, 2013 By Phil Galewitz HARTFORD, Conn. — An elderly man calls to ask if the land he owns will count as income to qualify for health coverage through Medicaid. A legal immigrant asks if she can sign up for a health plan through the state’s online insurance marketplace. A broker…
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Finding Information on 2014 Premiums and Tax Credits
By Joe Touschner As the Administration continues to improve Healthcare.gov, families, consumer assisters, advocates, and others may be looking for other sources of information about what plans will be available through marketplaces in 2014 and what they will cost after taking premium tax credits into account. Fortunately, there are some resources available from HHS and…
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Medicaid Managed Care in Florida: Federal Waiver Approval and Implementation
Florida’s new Medicaid plan– called the Managed Medical Assistance program –will move nearly all of the state’s Medicaid beneficiaries into managed-care plans. This new plan, approved in June 2013, is the final chapter in a Medicaid reform effort that is almost a decade old. Drawing on experiences from that decade of experimentation, the new plan…
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Healthcare.Gov Technical Problems Aside, the Show Must Go On
At the three-week mark, it’s time to admit that the problems with Healthcare.Gov are more than opening day jitters and huge lines at the box office. On one hand, the sheer number and complexity of the business functions that Healthcare.Gov is intended to perform require extremely sophisticated and high-performing software and hardware. On the other…
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Ohio Says Yes to Medicaid
By Sandy Oxley, CEO, Voices for Ohio’s Children Shout from the roof-tops! Throw a parade! It’s here. It’s finally here. Perhaps not with dancing in the streets or great jubilation from the state legislature, but here nevertheless. On this road to Medicaid expansion, we have experienced all types of twists, turns, detours and roadblocks. But…
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Gov. Pat McCrory says Medicaid in N.C. may expand after all
News & Record October 21, 2013 By Travis Fain GREENSBORO — Gov. Pat McCrory said Monday that North Carolina may have to expand its Medicaid health insurance program, saying a back door in the federal health care overhaul is forcing his hand. Experts question his logic, though changes in the law give hospitals more power to…
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LePage signals interest in Medicaid expansion compromise
Portland Press Herald October 20, 2013 By Joe Lawlore LEGISLATORS ARE STARTING TO DISCUSS STATE-DESIGNED ALTERNATIVES. While Gov. Paul LePage and Democratic lawmakers have sparred over Medicaid expansion for more than a year, a potential compromise could be on the horizon, with the governor now signaling a willingness to consider ideas currently bearing fruit in…
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How Will Immigrants Fare Under Health Reform? Putting Out the Welcome Mat & Encouraging Enrollment, Part II
By Dinah Wiley In Part I of this blog series, I noted that immigrants have unique concerns about signing up for health insurance, and are less likely than citizens to do so, and that blog addressed confidentiality concerns of immigrant families. The privacy concerns are paramount, yet a mixed-status family will also wonder if they…
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Kaiser Report Finds More Than 5 Million Will Fall Into Coverage Gap Created by States Failing to Expand Medicaid
A federally-funded Medicaid option for more uninsured adults is an important cornerstone of the Affordable Care Act, however, an estimated 5,161,820 uninsured individuals will be left behind because they live in states that have not yet accepted the Medicaid expansion option. Those who fall into the gap earn too much to qualify under their state’s…
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Health Affairs Podcast Looks at Early Enrollment Experience in Health Insurance Marketplaces
Health Affairs aired the fourth installment of its Health Affairs Conversations series yesterday afternoon, hosted by Chris Fleming of Health Affairs and featuring CHIR’s Sarah Dash, the American Enterprise Institute’s Joe Antos, and Manatt Health Solution’s Joel Ario. In a lively discussion, the guests provided a lay of the land on where Marketplaces stand after the first two weeks…
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Medicaid’s most vulnerable need protection, experts find
Gainesville Sun October 11, 2013 By Kristine Crane Florida’s most vulnerable Medicaid patients are about to be moved into commercial HMOs as part of the last leg of the state’s Medicaid reform that began nearly a decade ago. As this unfolds, Georgetown University researchers who have been studying Florida’s Medicaid program say that the process…
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Some families left out in the cold by Obamacare
CNNMoney October 10, 2013 By Tami Luhby Obamacare is designed to make health care affordable for everyone, but several million families could get caught in a loophole in the law that leaves them out in the cold. Those families will find themselves ineligible for Obamacare subsidies to buy their own insurance on the state-based exchanges,…
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Insurers look for workarounds to the Affordable Care Act
Marketplace October 8, 2013 by Dan Gornstein “The galaxy destroying dark force known as Obamacare was unleashed on an unsuspecting, yet still trusting world,” Stewart riffed in his character’s over-the-top style. “How did it go? Just as I thought, Obamacare has exploded the chest cavities of millions of Americans.” Actually, it’s more like millions of…
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Measuring ACA Enrollment: Lessons from Medicare Part D
The criticisms continue to roll in, with critics saying that the websites do not work well, that people are visiting the website but not enrolling, and that there are too few enrollees. What expectations are reasonable? What can we learn from the introduction of the Medicare Part D drug benefit in the fall of 2005?…
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New Urban Paper Compares Eligibility for Assistance Across States
By Martha Heberlein Some exciting new state-by-state data from the Urban Institute gives states a better sense of how many people might be eligible for and enroll in the expanded coverage options under the ACA, finding that more than 25 million uninsured are eligible for some sort of assistance securing coverage. As expected, there’s large…
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States Moving Ahead with Medicaid Expansion Expect Lower State Medicaid Spending in FY 2014
By Tara Mancini Earlier this week, the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured released their 13th annual Medicaid budget survey. The survey found that the average growth in total Medicaid spending and enrollment remained relatively low. However, spending and enrollment will increase across the board in FY 2014 as a result of the welcome…
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Study calls for monitoring of Medicaid managed care companies
KHI News Service October 9, 2013 By Jim McLean WASHINGTON, D.C. — Kansas legislators charged with overseeing the state’s KanCare program may find a new Florida study helpful. The study, done by researchers at Georgetown University, suggests that individuals and organizations with a stake in that state’s Medicaid program closely monitor the transition to managed care. “There…