Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Much of health reform’s efforts has been focused on expanding coverage to those without employer-sponsored insurance (ESI). For instance, the ACA mandated expanded Medicaid eligibility and the creation of a health insurance exchange for those not eligible for a group plan or those who work for small employers. One area of study which has been neglected, however,…
Section 1311 of the ACA requires a state to establish an Health Insurance Exchanges for the individual and small group market. How will states actually implement these Exchanges? A brief from the National Academy of Social Insurance reviews some of the program parameters which States will have to establish. What type of entity will the…
The Purple Health Plan is supposed to be a “moderate” plan for health reform–purple is after all a mix of red and blue. The plan is endorsed by five Nobel laureates. So what is the Purple Health Plan? Key provisions of the plan include the following: All Americans receive a voucher each year to purchase a…
Health Reform will of course increase Medicaid spending as more people become eligible for this entitlement. Yet this is not the only reason Medicaid costs will rise due to Health Reform. From a working paper by Jagadeesh Gokhale. “Once ObamaCare becomes fully effective in 2014, the cost of newly eligible Medicaid enrollees will be almost fully covered…
The Affordable Care Act of 2010 includes a number of provisions to study and/or implement value-based purchasing (VBP) programs in the United States’ health care system. These provisions target Medicare payment policies in particular. Today I review a Robert Wood Johnson (RWJ) article which provides an overview of the ACA provisions related to VBP. There…
On Monday, a federal judge in Florida declared that the individual mandate in the health reform law is unconstitutional. Some people are excited; other are not. What does this mean for you? Today I will explain. Why is the individual mandate so important? As part of health reform (PPACA), insurance companies can no longer adjust…
The provision of the ACA (a.k.a. Health Reform) have a number of provisions to mandate more generous health insurance benefits. Some of these provisions include the following: Health plans generally must allow adult children up to age 26 to stay on their parents’ policies Health Plans cannot charge co-payments for preventive services Health plans cannot…
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has put together a series of briefs which explain how Health Reform will affect various types of consumers. These briefs include: Young adults, Seniors, Children, Individual and small-group premiums. Hospitals, and Physicians. Although are a lot of these types of guides out there, the RWJ briefs are generally fairly comprehensive…
Health Reform (a.k.a. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act [PPACA]) provides two small provisions that will affect malpractice costs. Randall Bobvjerg explains: “As enacted, PPACA contained only two, quite limited malpractice provisions. Section 10607 authorized malpractice demonstrations by states, and section 10608 extended federal malpractice protections to free clinics’ nonmedical personnel. The demonstration authority comes…
As part of Health Reform, the government created the a center to study clinical effectiveness of different health treatments. This center, known as the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), “does not have the power to mandate or even endorse coverage rules or reimbursement for any particular treatment.” What leverage does the Institute have? Not too…