KAISER REPORT EXAMINES PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS UNDER ACA REPEAL
With the upcoming holidays, we will not be having a weekly update for the next two weeks. The NDNRC Update will return January 6th.
The Kaiser Family Foundation released a new issue brief this week which highlights the number of people who have pre-existing conditions and would be uninsurable if the ACA is repealed. Check out our news item for the total number of people who would be uninsurable under the law as it stood pre-ACA and for a list of those states which would be affected the most. Our news story also has a link to download a copy of the brief and can be found here. Kaiser’s CEO also wrote an op-ed which examines the issue of pre-existing conditions and how they would be dealt with under some of the Republican proposals. To read that article, click here.
This week, HHS released a breakdown of how the Affordable Care Act has had an impact on a state-by-state basis in all areas of coverage, including employer-based coverage, the individual market, Medicare and Medicaid. To read more about this report or for links to the HHS press release and report, check out our news item by clicking here.
HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell also wrote a blog post for Health Affairs entitled “Building a System That Works: the Future of Health Care.” In the article, she reflects on all the reforms accomplished through the ACA including the areas of outcome-based payments, improved care along with access to care and using health data. To read this blog post, click here. Also of note for navigators on the Health Affairs blog this week is a post by Timothy Jost which addresses the new pilot programs CMS is establishing to verify the eligibility for Special Enrollment Periods. To read this blog post, click here.
Families USA has released a series of state specific fact sheets that look at the effect a repeal of the Affordable Care Act would have on the residents of those states. We’ve added these fact sheets to each individual state page on the NDNRC website under “State Specific Resources.” To check your state, click on the state on our “State Resource Guide Map” available here.
On Wednesday, CMS released another biweekly enrollment snapshot showing that another 1.8 million people signed up for coverage through Healthcare.gov bringing the total number of people who have selected plans through Healthcare.gov during this open enrollment to over 4 million people. These numbers only apply to the 39 states on the federal exchange or are a state-federal partnership. To read the whole biweekly enrollment snapshot which includes state-by-state enrollment numbers for those 39 states, click here.
The University of Washington, Healthy Aging & Physical Disability, Rehabilitation Research Training Center (RRTC) recently released a new plain language summary on “What Successful Aging Means to People with a Physical Disability.” The summary can be accessed here.
If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check out the NDNRC statement entitled “Preserve the Protections Provided by the Affordable Care Act” where we call on the next Congress and Administration to protect provisions in the ACA which have benefited people with disabilities. To read our news item on this statement, click here. The full statement can be found on our website, where it is also available in a PDF download, by clicking here.
While there has been a lot of discussion around what an ACA repeal would mean for the individual marketplace and Medicaid, many forget that the ACA also had reforms for Medicare. The Kaiser Family Foundation has released a new issue brief which examines the effects an ACA repeal would have for the Medicare program. To read more about this brief and to download a copy, check out our news item by clicking here.
Are you looking for local partners to help with outreach to the disability community? The NDNRC has Community Outreach Collaboratives (COCs) for Open Enrollment Year 4 (OE4). The COCs increase collaborations in the community, dissemination and outreach efforts and enrollment of people with disabilities in the ACA marketplace. To find a COC, click here.
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