Marketplace
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The Doctor Is In
Doctor Donald M. Berwick, a respected Harvard professor and pediatrician who has built a reputation for improving quality and reducing health care costs, was sworn in this week as administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The agency had been without a permanent administrator since 2006. Dr. Berwick was installed in the CMS…
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A Deeper Look at Individual Responsibility Requirement
By Jocelyn Guyer Community Catalyst and Georgetown’s CCF have just finished up a piece that explores in detail the way that the new individual responsibility requirement will work. With all of the controversy and rhetoric surrounding the requirement, it seemed a good time to take an objective, detailed look at how it will actually work. …
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The New Responsibility to Secure Coverage: Frequently Asked Questions
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) includes a much-discussed requirement that people secure health insurance coverage for themselves and their children. This “individual responsibility requirement” is an essential element of the new law, which will play a vital role in increasing the number of people with health insurance and make it possible to…
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Massachusetts Isn’t the Only State with Health Reform Experience
While there is much work to be done implementing the many facets of the health reform, creating the exchange marketplace(s) is one of the tasks that receives much of the attention. Not only is it a new concept to most states but, along with the expansion of Medicaid, it is the mechanism for insuring the…
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Maryland Leaders Getting Jumpstart on Health Reform Implementation
By Vincent DeMarco, President, Maryland Citizens’ Health Initiative Education Fund,Inc. Unlike other states where the fight over federal health care reform continues, leaders in Maryland are figuring out how to make comprehensive health care a reality here at home. We want to make sure that Maryland gets every federal dollar it can under the new…
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Implementing Health Care Reform: Key Questions for States
Under health care reform, the federal government is tasked with establishing the framework under which many provisions of the law are implemented. Within this framework, though, state policymakers will make many key decisions and serve as critical partners in the implementation process. States must begin planning soon for the bulk of reforms that go into…
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Colorado Acting Boldly on Health Reform Implementation
By Gretchen Hammer, Colorado Coalition for the Medically Underserved and Ashlin Spinden of Metro Area for People Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, Jr. has a new health care mantra: “Because we didn’t wait for Washington, Colorado is now one of the best-positioned states in the nation to effectively implement health care reform.” Governor Ritter has made…
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What Does My Grandfather Have to Do with It? New Rules on Applying Health Reform Protections Across Health Plans
Under the health care reform law, employer health plans or those on the individual market in existence on March 23 (when the legislation was signed by President Obama) have been exempted from some, but not all, of the insurance reforms in the bill. This “grandfather” provision is a critical component of health care reform because…
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Getting it Right: State Policymakers Identify 10 Steps to Successful Implementation of Federal Health Reform
The National Academy of State Health Policy (NASHP) is an independent academy of state health policymakers working together to identify emerging issues, develop policy solutions, and improve state health policy and practice. Recently, its executive committee identified ten aspects of health reform that states must get right in order to successfully implement federal health reform.…
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Arizona Takes First Step to Restore Children’s Health Insurance
By Matt Jewett, Children’s Action Alliance of Arizona Not a lot of good news has come out of Arizona this year. Amidst leading the country in job losses, selling our state Capitol to raise money (we’re leasing it back), and a divisive immigration debate gaining national attention, we also became the first state ever to…
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Health Reform’s Maternity Coverage – Best Gift an Expectant Mother Could Receive
By Amanda Jezek, March of Dimes Health reform is giving pregnant women throughout the U.S. a far more valuable package than anything they could ever unwrap at a baby shower — access to maternity coverage. Coverage for maternity care is crucial because, without it, women face much more difficulty in obtaining needed health services. Women…
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Federal Regulations Issued on Dependent Coverage for Adult Children
Coverage of young adults up to 26 years of age on a parent’s insurance plan is one of the most popular provisions of the new health reform law and an early win for children and families. This week, three federal agencies released joint interim final regulations on this provision. The rules confirm that all individual and group health plans,…
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Health Reform Web Portal Is On Its Way
By Martha Heberlein Mark your calendars – on July 1, 2010, HHS plans on launching the new health reform web portal to provide state-level information about affordable health coverage options. In anticipation of the launch, regulations were released today detailing what information the portal will include and how the data will be collected. The portal will…
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Graduates Have One Less Thing to Worry About
Last week my son turned in his final paper and defended his senior thesis, his last acts as a college senior. In a few short weeks, he’ll join the 3 million young adults graduating from college this year. Fortunately, this year’s crop of grads (and their parents) will have one less thing to worry about…
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Addressing the “What’s In It for Me” and “What’s In It for Others” Questions on Health Reform
About 55 percent of Americans say they are confused about the new health reform law and more than half say they don’t yet have enough information to understand how it will affect them personally according to Kaiser’s latest tracking poll. As was clearly evident during the health reform debate, people take their health coverage very…
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Whither Premium Assistance??? (Part 1)
I started studying premium assistance programs in Medicaid and CHIP a decade ago with a large dose of skepticism. The idea of buying private coverage with public dollars when it is more expensive and typically covers fewer benefits than Medicaid struck me as a bad deal for beneficiaries and taxpayers alike. In many cases this…
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Early Wins for Children and Families in Health Care Reform
While many of the sweeping changes to insurance industry practices and other major provisions do not go into effect until January 1, 2014, there are some important early wins in health reform for children and their families. This issue brief reviews those early wins in some detail.
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Early Wins for Children and Families in Health Reform Highlighted
Today, CCF released a new issue brief that takes a look at some of the most immediate changes in health reform for children and families. While many of the sweeping changes to the insurance industry and other major provisions do not go into effect until 2014, children have some much earlier “wins” to look forward…
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Summary of Medicaid, CHIP, and Low-Income Provisions in Health Care Reform
On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which is designed (with its companion set of amendments in H.R. 4782) to provide coverage to 32 million people, adopt broad-reaching reforms in insurance industry practices, make major new investments in public health, and reduce the federal deficits. This…
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PICO’s Gordon Whitman Reflects on Historic Sunday Vote for Health Reform
(Editor’s Note: While CCF staff had their noses buried in legislative language and watched the health reform debate from the comforts of their own homes, PICO’s Gordon Whitman was out on the front lines. From what we saw on our televisions, there was a lot of commotion as protestors on both sides of the issue…