Health Reform
CSG-ERC offers Medicaid reform resources for state policymakers, including underservice protections
Medicaid is now the largest coverage program in the nation, consuming over a quarter of state budgets, and that share is rising at an unsustainable rate. State Medicaid programs are working on reforms to shift from a system that rewards volume with no regard to quality to a better system that builds value. Next week…
Read MoreHappy 6th Birthday to the Affordable Care Act
Regardless of whether the ACA is meeting expectations or not, it bears some reflection six years after passage — what’s been accomplished and what remains to be done. If you have forgotten what’s in the 906 pages, re-read the Act here.
Read More22,166 CT residents sharing $1.8 million in ACA premium rebates
Over $469 million in 2014 insurance premium rebates will soon be going back to US consumers including 22,166 CT residents, according to CMS. CT rebates will average $177 per family. Since 2011, under the Affordable Care Act, insurers are required to spend at least 80% of individual and small group insurance premiums on medical care…
Read MoreOctober web quiz: Potential CT impact of the Cadillac tax
Test your knowledge of Connecticut employer health plans that may be subject to the ACA’s Cadillac tax. Take the October CT Health Policy Webquiz.
Read MoreCadillac tax will affect 13.6% of single premiums in CT in 2018
Under the Affordable Care Act, in 2018 high cost employer-sponsored health plans will begin paying a hefty 40% tax, termed the Cadillac tax, on the value of the plan over specified threshold levels. A new report by the Congressional Budget Office estimates that 13.6% of CT single premium plans and 11.9% of CT family plans…
Read MoreAdvocates’ guide to underservice recommendations
Connecticut’s State Innovation Model (SIM) is seeking to radically transform our state’s $30 billion health system by aligning incentives to build value. SIM has chosen a shared savings payment model for those reforms. Advocates are concerned about incentives to deny necessary care under the new payment model, as happened in the past. SIM’s Equity and…
Read MoreAdvocates’ guide to underservice recommendations
SIM is seeking to radically transform our state’s $30 billion health system and has chosen a shared savings payment model for those reforms. Advocates are concerned about incentives to deny necessary care under the new payment model, as happened in the past. SIM’s Equity and Access Council was charged with developing protections to limit and…
Read MoreH&R Block report finds half of ACA subsidy recipients will have to pay IRS back; uninsured penalties average $172
A new analysis by H&R Block finds that 52% of taxpayers nationally who received subsidies last year to purchase coverage in the exchanges will owe the IRS an average of $530 for overpayments. The “settlement” is to reconcile insurance subsides paid based on estimated earnings during the year with actual earnings. On the positive side,…
Read MoreCT employer coverage eroded over last decade, well before ACA implementation
A new report by SHADAC finds that 11.3% fewer CT firms offered health benefits to workers in 2012/2013 than eight years before, following national trends. Most of that loss happened in the last four years (8.8%) following the economic downturn, but well before implementation of the Affordable Care Act. Eligibility for coverage (among employers who…
Read MoreRhode Island’s exchange trusted consumers and it worked
Exchanges across the country had to decide last year whether to require current members to return this year and choose a health plan or automatically re-enroll them in their old plan if they don’t choose to switch. A federal study found that 70% of consumers would save money if they switched. But there was general…
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