Tag Archives: subsidies

New health insurance subsidies will require strong explanatory journalism skills

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About Joseph Burns

Joseph Burns (@jburns18), a Massachusetts-based independent journalist, is AHCJ’s topic leader on health reform. He welcomes questions and suggestions and tip sheets at joseph@healthjournalism.org.

Number eligible for subsidies, American Rescue Plan, KFF.

American Rescue Plan, KFF.

On Thursday, some 7 million uninsured Americans became eligible for free health insurance under the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan (ARP) that President Biden signed into law in March, Dylan Scott reported at Vox. Other reports showed that some 11 million Americans became eligible for assistance paying for their health insurance premiums.

Scott’s reporting was based on what he said were new federal projections shared exclusively with Vox. When the ARP took effect on April 1, it greatly expanded eligibility for premium-payment assistance (also called subsidies or premium tax credits) under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to help individuals and families pay for health insurance coverage bought on the federal marketplace (at healthcare.gov) and on the state-run marketplaces, he noted. Continue reading →

New innovation waiver guidance provides more – and less – flexibility for states

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About Joanne Kenen

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Photo: Visit Lakeland via Flickr

The Trump administration has released new guidance that revamps the Affordable Care Act (ACA) state innovation waivers – also known as 1332 waivers – to give states more flexibility to expand access to less expensive non-ACA plans.

One of the biggest changes would be allowing people to use their ACA subsidies to buy insurance outside of ACA markets, including short-term plans or association health plans that don’t meet ACA coverage and patient protection rules. Continue reading →

Another bid at ACA stabilization – and likely another failure

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About Joanne Kenen

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Photo by Sean Stayte via flickr

Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray are circulating a new “ACA stabilization” plan that in some ways is more ambitious than past efforts and takes into account the repeal of the individual mandate penalty. The senators are trying to get it into the omnibus spending bill Congress wants to pass by March 23.

But success is not very likely at this point. It’s not impossible given all the horse-trading that has to happen to get a huge omnibus spending bill passed, and Alexander, in particular, is persisting. But it definitely is a long shot. Continue reading →

President Trump cut off the cost-sharing subsidies. Now what?

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About Joanne Kenen

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In the next few days and weeks we’ll see the first wave of reactions from health plans – and unsubsidized Affordable Care Act exchange shoppers, because of premium increases – to President Trump’s decision to cut off immediately the cost-sharing subsidies to health plans participating in the exchanges.

Continue reading →

Reporters must contend with readers’ perceptions, ‘fake facts’

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About Joanne Kenen

Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

In my blog posts, I usually try to highlight stories that have a lesson – something that you can take and apply to your own reporting on health reform.

This story  by the Washington Post’s Jenna  Johnson doesn’t have such a clear-cut, practical “how-to” aspect. But I’ve found myself thinking about her opening anecdote again and again since I read it, so I figured it’s time to share.  Continue reading →