Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced last week the first group of 26 projects slated to receive over $120 million in Health Care Innovation Awards. The awards – made possible by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) support projects nationwide that will “save money, deliver high quality medical care and [...]
New Report Says Health Care Out Of Reach to Millions of Americans
A study published this week in the journal Health Affairs, reports that one in five Americans under 65 had an “unmet medical need” because of the high cost of healthcare – up from one in eight in 2000. What amounts to tens of millions of adults in the United States, watched their access to health [...]
Health Insurers Move Forward on Private Health Exchanges
No matter what the Supreme Court decides on the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), it’s likely that Health Insurance Exchanges are here to stay. Even if the Supreme Court were to strike down the PPACA, many health insurance companies are pursuing development of private exchanges that support many of the initiatives outlined in [...]
Health Insurance Exchange Eligibility Tools Coming from CMS
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), on April 30, announced plans to develop verification data services to support coverage and eligibility tools for state Health Insurance Exchanges. CMS wants to identify data sources that can be used or adapted to verify whether someone qualifies for coverage in an employer-sponsored plan and whether they [...]
GOP Believes Health Reform May Cause Employers to Drop Coverage
A report issued last week by the Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee weighed in on the issue of employer behavior in the face of health reform. Looking at options employees will have to purchase their own insurance through state Health Insurance Exchanges, the GOP predicts that some of America’s largest companies may [...]
Oregon Secures $1.9 Billion Dollars for Health Reform Implementation
Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber (D) has secured $1.9 billion from the Obama administration for a program designed to save the state money on health care and improve care for the poor. Under the new program, over 600,000 people enrolled in Oregon’s Medicaid program, called the Oregon Health Plan, will be given access to “coordinated care [...]
Groups Weigh in on Health Insurance Exchanges and Employers
Two organizations have issued two different opinions on the critical question of how employers will react to changes implemented in 2014 according to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), including state Health Insurance Exchanges. The first report – issued by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) examines [...]
Health Reform Rebates to Top $1 Billion
According to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), insurers who spend less than 80 percent of the premiums they collect on medical care and quality improvements, must issue rebates to policyholders. A new estimate from the Kaiser Family Foundation, of the filings made to state insurance commissioners, reports that the amount returned to [...]
UPDATE: GOP Says Health Reform Taxes Could Hurt Businesses
House Republicans held a Small Business Committee meeting on April 18 to discuss taxes created by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) in March of 2010 and the effect those taxes could have on small businesses. In 2014, the employer health insurance mandate will go into effect, requiring businesses with 50 or more [...]
Many Could Lose if Health Reform Dies
A recent article in the Los Angeles Times describes one aspect of the fallout that could occur if the Supreme Court does indeed throw out health reform in response to the challenge of the individual insurance mandate. The article cites 700,000 low-income Californians who could lose a once-in-a-lifetime chance to purchase affordable health insurance. The [...]
