Calendar ’s Turn Brings New Congressional Approach To Health Reform
As congressional Republicans tried to adopt one bill after another all summer long by narrow partisan margins, they kept hearing the same message from Democrats and others: Why not try bipartisanship? Why not hold hearings, as the Democrats did in the spring and summer of 2009 leading up to the adoption of the ACA, and hear what stakeholders and experts from across the political spectrum think needs to be done to fix health care.
The Hearing Line-Up
As September begins, the Senate has scheduled a host of hearings. The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, led by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 6, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Source Type: blogs
CMS Cuts ACA Advertising By 90 Percent Amid Other Cuts To Enrollment Outreach
On August 31, 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that it intends to cut Affordable Care Act advertising from the $100 million spent by the Obama administration in 2016 for the 2017 open enrollment period by 90 percent to about $10 million this year for the 2018 open enrollment. CMS also announced that it intends to cut navigator grants from $62.5 million in 2016 by about 40 percent to $36.8 million for 2017. It also intends to tie grants to navigator programs for 2017 to their having met enrollment goals during 2016.
The administration’s announcement must be understood in context. The Af...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - September 1, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage Source Type: blogs
ACA Round-Up: CDC Reports Long-Term Coverage Gains, Shorter-Term Stall; Risk Corridor Briefs Filed; And More
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have released their Health Insurance Coverage: Early Release of Estimates from the National Health Interview Survey, January to March 2017. The survey shows that during the first three months of 2017, 500,000 fewer people were uninsured than in 2016, but 20.5 million fewer than in 2010. The former change is not statistically significant; the latter number is significant in every respect.
This pattern is repeated throughout the report. By every measure, insurance coverage improved for every group measured—children, adults, young adults, the poor, the near poor, the ...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - August 31, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage risk corridor payments uninsured rate Source Type: blogs
Are Short-Term Limited Duration Plans Bad For The Individual Market?
With the impasse in the congressional GOP’s attempts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the Trump administration has sought regulatory reforms that could improve health care choices and reduce costs for consumers. Among their options is the reversal of a recent regulation that sought to restrict the availability of short-term limited duration plans—insurance coverage exempted from the ACA’s regulations, which had previously been available for terms of up to one year. These plans have been criticized for offering poor value to consumers but also for appealing to enrollees who might otherwise sele...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - August 31, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Christopher Pope Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage individual market repeal and replace short-term limited duration plans Source Type: blogs
ACA Round-Up: Last Bare County Covered, Oklahoma Waiver Application Complete, And More
The Ohio Department of Insurance announced on August 24, 2017 that CareSource has agreed to offer exchange coverage in Paulding County, Ohio, the last “bare county” in the country. Of course, insurers have until September 27 to make a final decision as to whether they will participate in the exchanges for 2018; if the administration announced tomorrow that it would no longer reimburse insurers for reducing cost sharing as insurers are required to do under the Affordable Care Act, we could see a lot of bare counties quite quickly.
Barring further developments, however, exchange coverage will now be available in every pa...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - August 25, 2017 Category: Health Management Authors: Timothy Jost Tags: Following the ACA Insurance and Coverage 1332 waivers MacArthur Amendment Oklahoma Source Type: blogs
