Posts Tagged ‘Affordable Care’
Is the Center For Innovation Innovating Too Fast?
By Robert A. Berenson and Nicole Cafarella One of the few health policy issues that receives bipartisan support is the need to dramatically alter the way providers are paid, shifting from “paying for volume” to “paying for value” to alter the trajectory of health care spending while improving health care quality. To facilitate this shift, the Affordable ...
The Political Economy of Health Information Technology
By Mike Miliard Healthcare reform is arguably the hot-button political issue of our time. And with the Supreme Court locked and loaded to decide the fate of the Affordable Care Act this summer, it’s a safe bet the controversial two-year-old legislation will have a huge impact on the 2012 election and beyond. But what about health IT? ...
Employers And The Exchanges Under The Small Business Health Options Program: Examining The Potential And The Pitfalls [Small Business Insurance Exchanges]
The health insurance exchange is the centerpiece of the insurance reforms created by the Affordable Care Act. The Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) is intended to create a marketplace for small, and perhaps eventually large, employers to purchase health insurance for their employees. This paper introduces a collection of articles that illuminate the need ...
Adjusting For Risk Selection In State Health Insurance Exchanges Will Be Critically Important And Feasible, But Not Easy [Small Business Insurance Exchanges]
The Affordable Care Act calls for the establishment of state-level health insurance exchanges. The viability and success of these exchanges will require effective risk-adjustment strategies to compensate for differences in enrollees’ health status across health plans. This article describes why the Affordable Care Act could lead to favorable or adverse risk selection across plans. It ...
Large Employers See Scenarios Under Which They Could Move Workers And Retirees To Exchanges [Small Business Insurance Exchanges]
Large employers are thinking about how they might use the health insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. In the short term, from 2014 to 2016, many of these employers are giving serious consideration to using the exchanges to help provide coverage for part-time workers and for retirees not yet eligible for Medicare. In ...
How Choices In Exchange Design For States Could Affect Insurance Premiums And Levels Of Coverage [Small Business Insurance Exchanges]
The Affordable Care Act gives states the option to create health insurance exchanges from which individuals and small employers can purchase health insurance. States have considerable flexibility in how they design and implement these exchanges. We analyze several key design options being considered, using the Urban Institute’s Health Insurance Policy Simulation Model: creating separate versus ...
Health Insurance Exchanges Of Past And Present Offer Examples Of Features That Could Attract Small-Business Customers [Small Business Insurance Exchanges]
The Affordable Care Act calls on states to create health insurance exchanges serving small businesses by 2014. These exchanges will allow small-business owners to pool their buying power, have more choices of health plans, and buy affordable health insurance. However, creating an exchange that appeals to small-business owners poses several challenges. Past and current exchanges ...
Small Firms’ Actions In Two Areas, And Exchange Premium And Enrollment Impact [Small Business Insurance Exchanges]
The Affordable Care Act changed the regulations governing small firms’ health insurance premiums. However, small businesses can avoid many of the new regulations by self-insuring or maintaining grandfathered plans. If small firms with healthy and lower-cost enrollees avoid the regulations, premiums for coverage sold through insurance exchanges could be unaffordable. In this analysis we used ...
Regulating Stop-Loss Coverage May Be Needed To Deter Self- Insuring Small Employers From Undermining Market Reforms [Small Business Insurance Exchanges]
As implementation of the Affordable Care Act reshapes the US health insurance market, state policy makers should be prepared to revisit regulation of stop-loss coverage—a form of reinsurance—for small businesses. Aspects of the reform law could motivate small businesses to self-insure, rather than participate in state-regulated markets either inside or outside the new health insurance ...
Lessons For Coverage Expansion: A Virginia Primary Care Program For The Uninsured Reduced Utilization And Cut Costs [Coverage Issues]
The Affordable Care Act will expand health insurance coverage for an estimated thirty-two million uninsured Americans. Increased access to care is intended to reduce the unnecessary use of services such as emergency department visits and to achieve substantial cost savings. However, there is little evidence for such claims. To determine how the uninsured might respond ...
