Individual Insurance Market Performance in 2018 May 7, 2019 Issue Brief Individual market insurers are expecting to return to consumers a record total of about $800 million in medical loss ratio rebates for 2018, a year in which the insurance companies posted their best annual financial performance under the Affordable Care Act to date. Financial results for 2018 suggest that insurers in the individual market are generally returning to or exceeding profitability levels seen before 2014, when ACA insurance market rules took effect, including the requirement to cover people with pre-existing conditions.
The Silent Affordability Crisis Facing Sick People May 8, 2019 Perspective In this Axios column, Drew Altman shows that employer coverage for lower wage workers is much worse than ACA marketplace coverage for similar populations. It’s a bigger problem we need to talk about more, he says.
Individual Market Insurers Are Expecting to Pay a Record $800 Million in Rebates to Consumers for Excessive Premiums in 2018 May 8, 2019 News Release Individual market insurers are expecting to return to consumers a record total of about $800 million in excess premiums for 2018, a year in which the insurance companies posted their best annual financial performance under the Affordable Care Act to date, finds a new KFF analysis. The rebates to more…
JAMA Forum: Medicare-For-All or Medicare-For-More? May 22, 2019 Perspective In this May 2019 post for The JAMA forum, Larry Levitt examines how the early discussion and positioning among the presidential candidates offers a glimpse into how a debate about Medicare-for-all might play out.
Voters Are Tuning Out the Health Care Debates June 3, 2019 Perspective In this Axios column, Drew Altman reports on new KFF focus groups with voters. They show voters are focused on the problems they have paying for care and navigating the health system, but have yet to tune in on the health proposals being made by candidates and elected officials, and don’t see them as relevant to their problems.
Strategies for Improving Health Coverage and Reducing Costs: Major Proposals and Key Considerations June 12, 2019 Issue Brief KFF’s Tricia Neuman’s testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means on June 12, 2019 describes a range of proposals to broaden health insurance coverage and make health care more affordable, the similarities and differences among them, and the policy choices and trade-offs that could have significant implications for coverage and costs.
KFF Health Tracking Poll – June 2019: Health Care in the Democratic Primary and Medicare-for-all June 18, 2019 Poll Finding In anticipation of upcoming Democratic presidential debates, this poll finds that Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say that health care is a top issue they want to hear candidates talk about. When asked to say in their own words what health care issue they specifically want to hear about, affordability emerges as one of the top issues. The poll also probes the public about different possible implications of implementing a Medicare-for-all plan and finds that most Americans don’t realize how dramatically such a proposal would revamp the current health care system.
Poll: Most Americans Don’t Realize How Dramatically the Medicare-for-all Proposals Would Revamp the Nation’s Health Care System June 18, 2019 News Release As Congress and the Democratic presidential candidates continue to discuss Medicare-for-all and other proposals to expand public health coverage, most Americans know little about how the leading Medicare-for-all proposals would reshape the way all Americans get and pay for health care. This month’s KFF Health Tracking Poll probes the public’s…
Universal Coverage May Not Mean Everyone Has Health Insurance June 19, 2019 Perspective Universal coverage is a big and important goal. But would absolutely everyone be covered under current proposals? Is it a better rallying cry for Democrats in the primaries or the general election? Drew Altman analyzes these questions in an Axios column.
Key State Policy Choices About Medical Frailty Determinations for Medicaid Expansion Adults June 26, 2019 Issue Brief This issue brief answers 3 key questions and provides new data about state medical frailty determinations, which are assuming greater importance as more states adopt restrictive Section 1115 waivers that exempt medically frail enrollees from policies such as work requirements and premiums. The findings are excerpted from our 50-state survey on Medicaid financial eligibility for seniors and people with disabilities.