Photo: John Twohig via Flickr
“Covered California Now Offering Dental Coverage to Adults,” the headline in the Long Beach Press Telegram read.
The news that adult dental coverage would be included among the benefits available on the state insurance exchange has been well-received by consumers and health advocates, Barbara Feder Ostrov of Kaiser Health News reported in the story. Continue reading
Guy Boulton
Guy Boulton, a veteran health reporter at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, took a look at some of the conservative health care policy proposals we’ll be hearing more about as the 2016 campaign gets underway.
Conservative critics of the Affordable Care Act, in and out of government, haven’t rallied around a specific replacement plan, or even a specific repair plan.
But Boulton notes that proposals by conservatives generally allow more flexibility in designing health plan benefit packages. Insurance might be cheaper for some people – but more expensive for others. And without standard requirements it might be harder for consumers to compare their options. Continue reading
The Atlanta chapter of AHCJ and the Alliance for Health Reform sponsored a Dec. 2 event focused on the second open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act.
The panel discussed the state of navigator assistance, narrow networks and slower-than-expected enrollment since the insurance exchanges opened Nov. 15. About 25 AHCJ members and invited guests gathered for the event.
Joining me on the panel were Trey Sivley, a division director in the office of Georgia’s Insurance Commissioner; Lisa Stein of Seedco, which runs a navigator program in Georgia and three other states; and Dorian Martindale of Whitefoord, a federally qualified health center in Atlanta.
We post new resources on the Health Reform section of the website every month, and encourage you to visit and explore. But we wanted to draw your attention to some that are particularly timely.
Image by Sean via flickr.
Want to know everything about premiums, networks, deductibles, cost-sharing and out-of-pocket limits for all 7,000-plus silver plans on exchanges in every state and Washington, D.C.? Well, now you can have it.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Breakaway Policy Strategies have created a unique dataset that you can access for free. (It can be viewed in Excel, too.) Breakaway also has done an 8-page report identifying some of the key findings in the data.
The material will let you spot national trends, see how your state is like or unlike other states, or see what variety of plans your state is offering, and what may have to change for next year. It also gives some details about what is or is not counted toward the deductible – which, as we’ve noted before, is not always straightforward.
