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Tag Archives: HHS
Feds open wallet to health insurance exchanges
By Pat Speer January 25, 2011 U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced a new funding opportunity for state grants to help states implement health insurance exchanges (HIEs). Without confirming a “precise amount” of money available, Sebelius told … Continue reading
Posted in Health Care, Health Care Reform
Tagged health insurance exchanges, HHS, HIE
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EBSA Offers Grace Period for Some of Health Care Reform Law’s Provisions on Internal Claims and Appeals
The U.S. Employee Benefit Security Administration (EBSA) has issued Technical Release 2010-02 which sets forth an enforcement grace period until July 1, 2011 for compliance with certain new provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) with respect to internal claims and appeals. This grace period will give plans and issuers more time to implement procedures and make changes to computer systems in order to comply fully. Continue reading
Projection: PPACA to have “moderate effect” on health spending growth rates
U.S. health spending is expected to reach nearly $4.6 trillion by 2019, growing at an average annual rate over the next decade of 6.3%, as opposed to a 6.1% rate anticipated before reform, according to economists at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
By 2019, health care is predicted to account for nearly one of every five U.S. dollars spent or about 19.6% of the gross domestic product, 0.3 percentage points higher than projected previously.
“In the aggregate, it appears that the Affordable Care Act will have a moderate effect on health spending growth rates and the health care share of the economy,” says Andrea Sisko, lead author of the study and economist at CMS.
At the same time, she explains that “differences in spending patterns, by year and by payer, reflect reform’s many major changes to health care coverage and financing.” Continue reading
Posted in Health Care, Health Care Reform
Tagged CMS, Health care reform, HHS, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, PPACA
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Debunking the W-2 scare: lessons learned
Because of health care reform, starting in 2011 employees will no longer be permitted to receive group health insurance from their employers on a tax-free basis, and employers will lose any corporate deductions they might have with respect to employer-provided health care benefits.
Sound bad? You bet, and it would be, especially if it were true. But it’s not true. Not even close. Continue reading
Posted in Health Care, Health Care Reform
Tagged Aggregrate Costs, Health and Human Services, HHS, PPACA, W-2s
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Health reform could foil mini-med plans
As industry practitioners continue to peel the onion on health care reform’s impact, a new layer of concern is now reverberating across the worksite market.
The survival of so-called mini-medical plans, most of which are offered on a voluntary basis and target part-time or seasonal employees, hangs in the balance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. At issue is a provision stipulating that health insurers cannot offer such coverage through state exchanges and ruling that the plans do not qualify as “essential benefits.”
Dave Evans, senior vice president of the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America, known as the “Big I,” says the uncertain fate of mini-med policies hinges on a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services ruling on whether the new health care mandates will apply to these plans.
“There has been an appetite for these products,” he observes, “and we hope that they are not taken off the menu under the guise of health care reform.”
One industry official was quoted in a recent report as saying HHS has the “regulatory latitude to completely destroy these plans, eliminating them from the marketplace, if they choose to say that the market reforms – no annual or lifetime limits – apply to mini-med plans.” Continue reading
