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New Report Provides State Policy Recommendations on How to Protect Consumers, Reduce Disparities During the COVID-19 Pandemic
The COVID-19 pandemic presents unprecedented threats to health and safety, and exacerbates existing inequities that continue to jeopardize the wellbeing of millions of Americans. As always, state health policy is critical to protecting consumers’ access to health care and addressing health disparities, particularly during the public health and economic crises brought by COVID-19. To help…
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COVID-19 Response: States That Run Their Own ACA Marketplace Are Better Positioned to Help Consumers Get Covered
This blog was originally posted on the Georgetown Center on Health Insurance Reforms’ CHIRBlog. As COVID-19 cases climb, social distancing – the best tool we have to bring the virus to heel – has wrought an unprecedented loss of jobs, income, and health coverage. Over the coming months, the uninsured rate is expected to skyrocket. In the…
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States Leaning In: Washington Doubles Down on Efforts to Shore up Market, Protect Consumers
Recently, the Commonwealth Fund published scorecards on state health system performance. These tallies, informed in part by CHIR research, evaluate each state on a range of health care metrics, including access to care and income-based health disparities. One of the top-performing states is Washington State, ranked fourth in the country; the state has risen ten spots since the last…
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States Lean In as the Federal Government Cuts Back: Navigator and Advertising Funding for the ACA’s Sixth Open Enrollment
On November 1, the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) insurance marketplaces will launch their sixth enrollment season. This year, the challenges they face may be greater than laster year, with the loss of the individual mandate penalty as an enrollment incentive and the emergence of a parallel, unregulated market that could siphon away healthy enrollees. Yet the Trump administration has…
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Coverage That (Doesn’t) Count: How the Short-Term, Limited Duration Rule Could Lead to Underinsurance
Any day now, the Trump administration is expected to publish new rules that will expand access to short-term, limited duration insurance (STLDI). The proposed rule would allow STLDI plans to extend up to almost a full year, along with other changes that enable consumers to purchase STLDI as an alternative to comprehensive insurance products currently sold on the individual…