Marketplace
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IRS Says Tax Credits will be Available to People Applying for Coverage on Federally Facilitated Exchange
By Joe Touschner Several states have committed to operating their own health insurance exchanges, but it seems increasingly likely that others will have an Affordable Insurance Exchange operated by the federal government. A key aspect for making exchanges successful is that those who qualify will be able to access federal tax credits when they buy private…
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HHS Provides Further Clarification on Supreme Court Ruling
By Jocelyn Guyer As we noted yesterday, Secretary Sebelius sent a letter to the nation’s Governors on Wednesday clarifying that the Supreme Court ruling affects only HHS’s ability to enforce the Medicaid expansion for adults to 133% of the FPL, not other provisions such as the maintenance-of-effort requirement. Now, the Acting CMS Director Marilynn Tavenner,…
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Comments on CCIIO’s Verification of Access to Employer-‐Sponsored Coverage Bulletin
CCF Comments on CCIIO’s Verification of Access to Employer-‐Sponsored Coverage Bulletin
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HHS Secretary Helps Clarify Implications of Supreme Court Ruling
This week, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to the nation’s Governors in adance of their weekend meeting in Williamsburg, VA providing some important clarity on the implications of the Supreme Court ruling for Medicaid. As we all know, the Supreme Court decided that states cannot face loss of all of their Medicaid funds if…
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Extending Medicaid Coverage Provides Good Value to States & Uninsured People
As the dust settles on the Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, the big question emerging is whether all states will proceed with the required expansion of Medicaid to 133 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL) for parents and other adults. Like the rest of the Affordable Care Act, this requirement remains…
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Since When is 2% Considered Massive?
I don’t know about you but I’ve been enjoying watching all of the reactions to yesterday’s decision. In addition to the chuckle I got when a few major news outlets got it wrong, I’ve been smirking about opponents’ claims that the law places a “massive tax” on all Americans. Let’s just put things in perspective…
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CCF Statement on Supreme Court’s Decision to Uphold the Affordable Care Act
Editor’s Note: Following is a statement by CCF Co-Executive Directors Jocelyn Guyer and Joan Alker on today’s Supreme Court decision. “Today is a good day for America’s children and families. The Supreme Court has affirmed the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and our nation can now continue to implement the law of…
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New York Times Offers a Preview of Who Might Benefit Under the ACA
By Martha Heberlein As we await the ruling from the Supreme Court, a recent article in the New York Times reminds us of just how important the Medicaid expansion will be. The article tells the stories of a number of adults who have benefited (or didn’t) from a lottery in Oregon in 2008 that randomly selected…
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Utah’s Exchange Shifts Cost to Families
Editor’s Note: Just over a year ago, CCF and our colleagues at Georgetown’s Center for Health Insurance Reforms released a paper examining the health insurance exchanges operating in Utah and Massachusetts. We concluded that they should not be viewed as ideological “bookends” but rather as entities with different goals that had taken different steps to attract…
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Will Funding for the ACS Continue? (I hope so!)
By Martha Heberlein As I’m sure you can tell from our multitude of blogs – we at CCF love the ACS! With its large sample size, it’s allowed us (and all our friends out in the states) to dig into data in smaller slices of the country. With the recognition that once-a-decade data collection is not…
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Covering Parents is Good For Kids: 4.9 Million Uninsured Stand to Gain Coverage
As any parent who has faced the challenge of being sick and trying to fulfill his or her parenting duties will tell you – the well-being of children is highly dependent on the well-being of their parents. My bottomline is covering parents is good for kids. While we’ve made great strides in bringing down the…
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A Focus on Children and Youth in the Nuts and Bolts of an Exchange
By Mike Odeh, Children Now School might be out for summer – but not for California’s Health Benefit Exchange board! The board has scheduled at least two full meetings in June, and is absorbing a small encyclopedia’s worth of reports. These extensive analyses touch on some of the many important “nuts and bolts” decisions that…
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New Study Finds Massachusetts Health Reform is Good for Kids
By Tara Mancini Massachusetts’ 2006 health reform law is frequently a topic of research and debate. However, few studies have specifically focused on how children have fared as a result of the reform. That is until this recent study published in the American Economic Review that focuses solely on children under 18 and the impact that…
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IRS Releases Final Premium Tax Credit Rule
By Martha Heberlein The final premium tax credit rule was published in the Federal Register on May 23rd. The rule, which describes eligibility for the health insurance premium tax credits, pretty much finalized what was proposed back in August. (For a summary on the math behind the calculations, check out HealthReformGPS.) However, there are a few interesting things…
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Six States Explore More Efficient Ways to Provide Family Benefits
For those of us who appreciate the opportunities and challenges states face in implementing the Affordable Care Act, it is easy to get wrapped up in making sure the expanded health coverage programs are streamlined and well coordinated. Much of the work ahead relies on having sophisticated IT systems that will revolutionize the eligibility and…
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Access to Care for Adults Has Diminished Over the Past 10 Years
By Martha Heberlein A recent article in Health Affairs finds that access to care for adults has deteriorated in the last decade. The likelihood of having a usual source of care, an office visit, or seeing a dentist all declined. At the same time, the likelihood of visiting an emergency room rose slightly. Adults were…
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Youth in Foster Care Can Benefit Greatly from ACA, but Need Advocates to Act Now to Make Sure They Do
By Ginny Puddefoot, The Children’s Partnership Thanks to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), youth who are in foster care on their 18th birthday will soon have access to extended health insurance coverage through Medicaid until reaching the age of 26. This represents a huge benefit to these young people–and a major challenge for all…
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The Complex Modern Family and Barriers to Children’s Health Coverage
By Gene Lewit, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation Children with health insurance coverage start off life on the right foot: they are healthier, miss fewer days of school and their parents and guardians miss less work. Happily, recent efforts to grow and strengthen Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program have extended coverage to…
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New Guidance on Federally-Facilitated Exchanges Will Have a Super-Sized Impact
By Jocelyn Guyer Last week, HHS released new guidance on how it will operate federally-facilitated exchanges (FFE) in states that are not ready to operate their own. It is a sparse 19-pages, but it will have a super-sized impact on how ACA is implemented in the months and years ahead. We now are looking at…
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Employer-Sponsored Insurance Declining More Rapidly for Low-Wage Workers
A recent report from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation underscores that when it comes to health insurance provided on the job, the less you make the less you get. Take a look at the chart below which illustrates the decline in employer-sponsored coverage by income level. The lowest paid workers –…