Increased Visits to Food Pantries During Holiday Season Provide Opportunity to Reach Uninsured New Yorkers
ALBANY, N.Y. (November 25, 2019) – NY State of Health, the state's official health plan Marketplace, today announced its partnership with food pantries for the third holiday season to educate consumers about enrolling in high quality, affordable health insurance. Food pantries across New York will have certified enrollment assistors on-site throughout November and December to answer questions about health coverage options and how to enroll in a health plan. This year, the Marketplace is also offering eligible New Yorkers the option to receive information on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) during the enrollment process.
But the plans were on display…”
“On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.”
“That’s the display department.”
“With a flashlight.”
“Ah, well, the lights had probably gone.”
“So had the stairs.”
“But look, you found the notice, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Arthur, “yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying ‘Beware of the Leopard.”
Under the Arkansas law, targeted enrollees were notified by the state via mail and informational flyers that they were required to work 80 hours a month, participate in another qualifying activity such as job training or community service, or meet criteria for an exemption such as pregnancy, a disability or parenting a child.
UPDATE: Well what do you know? Less than a day after Kliff wrote her story on the BYU-Idaho situation, they've already reversed their stance! Bravo for her!
BYU-Idaho, the school @sarahkliff reported would not allow its students to enroll in Medicaid, sent this email to students reversing its decision, per my DMs pic.twitter.com/jEuIu9K1KT
I heard about this story a couple of weeks ago but didn't get around to writing about it until today. Via Twitter:
Students of the BYUs: might want to start making some noise: the Church Board of Ed just decided that they won’t accept Medicaid as a provider for their student health insurance requirement. The week IDaho expanded Medicaid too. Catch 22? DMBA doesn’t count for ACA requirement.
BREAKING -- Poverty rights group files suit in federal court against work requirements MI has enacted for those on expanded Medicaid program Healthy Michigan.
A lawsuit has been filed challenging Michigan's new Medicaid work requirements that take effect Jan. 1. Plaintiffs are 4 people enrolled in the Medicaid expansion program known as Healthy Michigan #MiLeg
Back in late October, a few days before the launch of the 2020 Open Enrollment Period, I issued a warning to ACA exchange enrollees who may have been benefiting from the "Silver Loading" premium pricing strategy for in 2018 and/or 2019 that the enhanced subsidies they've been taking advantage of for two years are likely going to be reversed for 2020:
What happens next year if the benchmark Silver plan drops by 4%...but the Bronze, Gold, and the OTHER Silver plans stay flat?
Earlier this year, a top Republican communications operative delivered a plan to boost the profile of Seema Verma, President Trump’s appointee overseeing health insurance for the elderly and poor. The “Executive Visibility Proposal” was a month-by-month blueprint to have her grant interviews to Women’s Day and other magazines, speak at prominent conferences and appear at Washington’s most prestigious social events.
Marked “privileged, pre-decisional, deliberative,” the eight-page proposal, emailed to Verma’s deputy chief of staff, was part of an unusual campaign carried out by high-paid contractors Verma brought on at a cost to taxpayers of more than $3 million.
Critics say ‘junk plans’ are being pushed on ACA exchanges
The Trump administration has encouraged consumers to use private brokers, who often make more money if they sell the less robust plans.
The Trump administration is encouraging consumers on the Obamacare individual market to seek help from private brokers, who are permitted to sell short-term health plans that critics deride as “junk” because they don’t protect people with preexisting conditions, or cover costly services such as hospital care, in many cases.
The Week 3 HealthCare.Gov Snapshot Report from CMS should be released later on this afternoon, covering enrollment in 38 states from Nov. 10th - Nov. 16th.
As a reminder, here's what the Week 2 report looked like:
There are two major things to account for when comparing the two years: First, there's a day missing due to Nov. 1st falling on a Friday instead of a Thursday this year. This likely accounts for around half of the 244,000 difference. The other significant difference is that Nevada split off from HC.gov this year, which accounted for around 12,000 of the gap the first 2 weeks.
If you assume around 130,000 of the difference is due to the missing day, that still leaves 2020 Open Enrollment around 100,000 short of the same time period last year on HealthCare.Gov.
Connect for Health Colorado® Reports Coloradans are Shopping Around for 2020 Coverage
DENVER – Nearly 24,000 Coloradans have signed up for a health insurance plan through Connect for Health Colorado’s Marketplace between Nov. 1 and Nov. 15. for coverage starting Jan. 1, 2020.
More Coloradans buying their own health insurance are seeing lower premiums, largely due to the reinsurance program that passed this year. Reinsurance helps insurers with their most costly claims. However, given the complexities of how financial help available through the Marketplace is calculated, current customers should shop around to reduce monthly costs.
Heh. This is a pretty good layman-speak for #ReverseSilverLoading.
On average, those who qualify to automatically renew their plan would lower their premiums by 15 percent (compared to 2019) if they switch to the lowest-cost plan in their current level of coverage.
The GOP has spent a solid decade trying to tear down the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act. They started even before the bill was passed or signed into law, of course, which is why it ended up passing without a single Republican vote in either the House or Senate. After that, they filed lawsuit after lawsuit (a handful with merit, others utterly baseless, such as the current one, which may have the thinnest case in history to ever make it so far in federal court), while simultaneously voting to repeal the ACA either partly or fully dozens of times.
