New DIFS Bulletin to Protect LGBTQ+ Michiganders from Discrimination in Insurance, Financial Markets
March 17, 2023
(LANSING, MICH) The Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS) has issued a bulletin that reaffirms the department’s commitment to protecting Michiganders from discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity in the insurance or financial services industries. The bulletin ensures that the insurance and financial services industries, including health insurance, must comply with the newly-amended Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act as signed into law by Governor Gretchen Whitmer yesterday afternoon.
The first section of the legislative text is about as frank and clear as I've ever seen:
The legislature finds that Hawaii has long been a leader in advancing reproductive rights and advocating for access to affordable and comprehensive sexual and reproductive health care without discrimination. However, gaps in coverage and care still exist, and Hawaii benefits and protections have been threatened for years by a hostile federal administration that has attempted to restrict and repeal the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and limit access to sexual and reproductive health care. The Trump administration made it increasingly difficult for insurers to cover abortion care and assembled a Supreme Court that restricted abortion access and that may eliminate the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in the near future.
The Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) is offered through the Healthy and Well Kids in Iowa program, also known as Hawki. Iowa offers Hawki health coverage for uninsured children of working families.
No family pays more than $40 a month. Some families pay nothing at all. A child who qualifies for Hawki health insurance will get their health coverage through a Managed Care Organization (MCO).
Mazel Tov to Audrey Morse Gasteier, who I know via online discussions & have met a couple of times in person at the annual Families USA conference. I'm sure she'll continue to do a great job:
BOSTON — Audrey Morse Gasteier, who has served as a policy leader at the Massachusetts Health Connector for more than a decade, was named executive director of the state-based Marketplace today by Secretary of Health and Human Services and Health Connector Board Chair Kate Walsh.
Morse Gasteier had been serving as acting executive director since January.
“Since its establishment in 2006, the Health Connector has been where Massachusetts residents can find affordable health care,” said Secretary Walsh. “Audrey has been a key part of that important work for many years, and I look forward to working with her as we continue to make health care coverage accessible to everyone in Massachusetts.”
One of the most inane restrictions of the ACA in my view, as I noted in my "If I Ran the Zoo" wish list back in 2017, is that it doesn't allow undocumented immigrants to enroll in ACA marketplace health plans ("Qualified Health Plans" or QHPs).
I don't just mean that they aren't eligible for federal financial subsidies--that's a prohibition which I can at least understand, even if I don't agree with it. I mean that they aren't allowed to enroll in ACA exchange-based QHPs even at full price, as noted in Section 1312(f)(3):
As I noted last month, as we've reached the 3rd anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic hitting U.S. shores and with the Public Health Emergency winding down, it's become more & more difficult for data analysts and researchers to acquire comprehensive, county-level data about cases, hospitalizations, deaths, vaccinations and so forth.
With two of these already discontinued and the third set to do so within the next few weeks, this story is somehow even more depressing to me (via Robert King at Fierce Healthcare; h/t Katherine Hempstead for the heads up):
Earlier today I received a first: A "cease & desist"-type email from Humana Inc's "Sales Integrity Department" asking me to remove their logo from a blog post about the company:
Dear Website Owner:
Humana encourages agents and agencies (collectively, “Agents”) to promote the Humana Brand in a manner that complies with applicable laws and Humana’s own policies and procedures.
Internet-based capabilities are providing new and interactive ways to sell Humana products and services. Although these capabilities offer tremendous opportunities, they also create responsibilities for Humana and its Agents to maintain a system of controls and monitoring.
The Sales Integrity Department at Humana has done a review of websites containing the Humana logo and we have detected your use of the logo...
Arizona Senate Bill 1292 was introduced by Democratic state Representative Rosanna Gabaldon in February. Here's the most relevant portionf of the legislative text:
Title 20, chapter 1, article 1, Arizona Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section 20-123, to read:
20-123. Health care insurers; requirements; prohibitions; definitions
A. Notwithstanding any other law, every health care insurer that offers an individual health care plan, short-term limited duration insurance or a small employer group health care plan in this state:
1. Shall:
(a) Ensure that all products sold cover essential health care benefits.
(b) Limit cost sharing for the coverage of essential health care benefits, including deductibles, coinsurance and copayments.
Inflation Reduction Act Tamps Down on Prescription Drug Price Increases Above Inflation
New Medicare Prescription Drug Inflation Rebate Program protects people with Medicare and taxpayers when drug companies increase prices faster than the rate of inflation
HHS announces savings for some people with Medicare on 27 Part B prescription drugs
The Biden-Harris Administration has made lowering prescription drug costs in America a key priority — and President Biden is delivering results. Today, the Department of Health and Human Services, through the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), announced 27 prescription drugs for which Part B beneficiary coinsurances may be lower from April 1 – June 30, 2023. Thanks to President Biden’s new law to lower prescription drug costs, some people with Medicare who take these drugs may save between $2 and $390 per average dose starting April 1, depending on their individual coverage. Through the Inflation Reduction Act, President Biden and his Administration are lowering prescription drug costs for American seniors and families.
Sometimes the simplest bills can have huge positive impacts. California Assembly Bill 503 was introduced by Democratic Assemblymember Juan Carrillo in February.
AB 503, as introduced, Juan Carrillo. Health care: organ donation enrollment. Existing law, the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, authorizes the creation of a not-for-profit entity to be designated as the California Organ and Tissue Donor Registrar and requires that entity to establish and maintain the Donate Life California Organ and Tissue Donor Registry for persons who have identified themselves as organ and tissue donors upon their death. Existing law provides for the Medi-Cal program, administered by the State Department of Health Care Services and under which qualified low-income individuals receive health care services. The Medi-Cal program is, in part, governed and funded by federal Medicaid program provisions.
Existing law requires the department, in consultation with the board governing the California Health Benefit Exchange, to develop a single paper, electronic, and telephone application for insurance affordability programs, including Medi-Cal.
