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  • HHS Launches Exchange Outreach Efforts & Opens the ‘Health Insurance Marketplace’

    Guest

    Sarah Dash, Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms This week, the Department of Health and Human Services began a major push to educate the public about the new health insurance options available to them under the Affordable Care Act, including the newly-named Health Insurance Marketplace (formerly known as the “Federally Facilitated Exchange.”) With just under nine months to…

  • CHIP Waiting Periods Make No Sense When Families Are Penalized for Not Having Coverage

    Tricia Brooks

    The latest round of proposed Medicaid regulations has a number of helpful provisions but we couldn’t help be disappointed that the proposed rules allow states to continue to impose CHIP waiting periods on children who have recently been covered by group health insurance.  Simply put…waiting periods make no sense in a post-ACA universe in which…

  • HHS Sheds Light on How Family Income Will be Calculated Under New MAGI Method for Medicaid and CHIP

    CCFadmin

    By Jocelyn Guyer Over the holidays, while we were all relaxing with family and friends (or sneaking off for fiscal cliff updates), HHS issued an important “Dear State Medicaid Director” letter that will help to determine the income levels for children’s coverage under Medicaid and CHIP for at least the next six years.  Not quite…

  • Health Insurance Reform Under the Fiscal Cliff Agreement – Mostly Left Untouched

    Sabrina Corlette

    By Sabrina Corlette, Center on Health Insurance Reforms The health insurance reform provisions of the Affordable Care Act were mostly left untouched under the recently passed budget agreement to avert the fiscal cliff, with one exception. The bill rescinds the remaining, unobligated funding in the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) program, ending new grants and loans…

  • Happy 2013! Express Lane and Family Health Information Centers Ring in the New Year

    Elisabeth Wright Burak

    We are confident that Say Ahhh! readers received dozens of smartphone alerts and emails the past few days with minute-by-minute updates on the fiscal cliff deal making.  Yet those alerts missed some important Medicaid- and CHIP-related provisions that rose to the top of our “Breaking News” list: Express Lane Eligibility option extended until September 30,…

  • State Trends: Per Person Costs of Private Insurance Rising Faster than Per Person Medicare Spending

    Karina Wagnerman

    A new report from the Commonwealth Fund analyzes state trends in private employer-sponsored insurance from 2003 to 2011 for the under-65 population. Right now there is a lot of attention on the federal deficit and Medicare. What is not receiving a lot of attention is that the costs of private insurance spending per person have…

  • Essential Health Benefit and Market Reform Rules Comments Are Due December 26th – CCF Shares Draft Comments

    CCFadmin

    By Joe Touschner In my last post on HHS’s proposed rules, I mentioned that, like the holidays, the comment deadline would be here before we knew it.  Well here we are in the middle of the holiday season and the December 26 deadline is right around the corner.  It’s likely not something that was on…

  • Green Light Comes Early for Six Health Insurance Exchanges

    Guest

    By Sarah Dash, Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reform On Monday, December 10th, the Department of Health and Human Services granted conditional approval to six states seeking to establish state-based health insurance exchanges: Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Oregon, and Washington. The decisions came earlier than the January 1, 2013, statutory deadline for HHS to…

  • The Medical Loss Ratio Rule – Report Highlights Savings for Consumers

    Sabrina Corlette

    By Sabrina Corlette, Center on Health Insurance Reform The Commonwealth Fund recently released a study evaluating insurers’ responses to the medical loss ratio (MLR) rules under the Affordable Care Act. The study’s authors found that the MLR has resulted in a total of $1.5 billion in savings from reducing insurers’ administrative costs and rebates for consumers. The MLR, often…

  • Essential Health Benefit Regs Invite Comment, Provide New Info on Habilitative Services and Cost-Sharing

    CCFadmin

    By Joe Touschner As we noted just before Thanksgiving, HHS recently proposed regulations on essential health benefits (as well as cost-sharing and actuarial value).  A few new developments are noted below, but the most important aspect of the rule is its opportunity for comment.  Included with the rule is a proposed set of essential health…

  • New Development in the Stop-Loss Debate

    Guest

    By Christine Monahan, Center on Health Insurance Reforms There is a lot of talk around Washington, D.C. these days about whether or not more small employers will self-fund their employee’s health coverage with implementation of the Affordable Care Act – and, if they do, how this could impact the fully-insured small group market (including the…

  • HHS Proposes Official Essential Health Benefit and Insurance Market Regulations

    CCFadmin

    By Joe Touschner While HHS outlined its approach for setting Essential Health Benefits in a Bulletin nearly a year ago, we’ve been waiting for federal regulations to make things official.  This week, those regulations were proposed.  The Department has posted info on the regs at these links: EHB Fact Sheet EHB Proposed Rule We’re still…

  • If You Build It Will They Come? Outreach Lessons from CHIP

    Guest

    Editor’s Note:  This blog post originally appeared on the State Refor(um) By Carla Plaza, National Academy for State Health Policy (NASHP) If you build it will they come? If history repeats itself, they will, but not without intentional, focused efforts to reach, assist and enroll individuals and families into health care coverage. Prior to the…

  • Affordable Care Act’s Ban on Lifetime Limits Has Ended Martin Addie’s Coverage Circus

    Guest

    By Joanne Volk, Center on Health Insurance Reforms What would you do if you had a health care condition that required regular, costly care your whole lifetime? You’d probably be sure you had uninterrupted health coverage so you could get the care you need without bankrupting your family. For tens of millions of Americans like…

  • Eligibility and Enrollment Systems: An Advocate’s IT Toolkit

    Tricia Brooks

    Efforts to improve public coverage programs have long been stymied by the prevalence of outdated IT systems that are the source of numerous consumer issues from confusing and conflicting notices to lost eligibility records to inadequate data to measure program performance. Meanwhile the state of technology and web-based services has advanced significantly, leaving many Medicaid…

  • Eligibility and Enrollment Systems: An Advocate’s IT Toolkit

    Tricia Brooks

    Efforts to improve public coverage programs have long been stymied by the prevalence of outdated IT systems that are the source of numerous consumer issues from confusing and conflicting notices to lost eligibility records to inadequate data to measure program performance. Meanwhile the state of technology and web-based services has advanced significantly, leaving many Medicaid…

  • Countdown Clock Toward 2014 is Ticking (No More Timeouts)

    Cathy Hope

    The Affordable Care Act is the law of the land – even House Speaker John Boehner affirmed that point in an interview with Diane Sawyer on ABC Nightly News. The countdown clock on implementation is ticking and there are no more time outs left.  States need to move full speed ahead to beat the clock…

  • The Election Results Are In: Now What Happens with the Affordable Care Act?

    Guest

    (Editor’s Note: We welcome Senator Rockefeller’s Senior Health Policy Aide Sarah Dash to Georgetown University’s Health Policy team. She is joining our colleagues at the Center on Health Insurance Reforms where she will direct a 50-state evaluation of state health insurance exchange implementation and its impact on access to affordable, high-quality health care. She will also…

  • What Do the Election Results Mean for the Affordable Care Act?

    Joan Alker

    Last night was a good night for health care reform and the millions of Americans who will benefit from it. The Affordable Care Act has faced years of mudslinging, attempts to defund it, a Supreme Court challenge and played a high profile role in this year’s election. The election results underscore the fact that the…

  • In-Person Assistors May Look a Lot Like Navigators

    Tricia Brooks

    Quietly embedded in the June 29, 2012 update of the exchange establishment grant funding opportunity announcement (FOA) was a new category of consumer assistance – in person assistance (IPA). While federal officials haven’t been completely mum about this announcement, we have yet to see anything in writing (beyond what’s in the FOA and exchange blueprint)…