OPEN ENROLLMENT ENDS TUESDAY
As open enrollment draws to a close on Tuesday, the NDNRC is here to make sure you have all the resources you need to be able to assist individuals with disabilities as they consider their options on the ACA marketplace. We have a Disability Guide which is meant to strengthen disability literacy, help you identify and provide appropriate accommodations and assist you in correctly identifying issues that are central to healthcare insurance for people with disabilities. The disability guide is available on our website and for PDF download here. We also have 17 topical fact sheets and 9 population specific fact sheets. The topical fact sheets address issues such as rehabilitation and habilitation benefits, prescription medication benefits, mental health and substance abuse parity and the process for Medicaid eligibility. The population specific fact sheets cover a wide variety of disabilities such as autism, intellectual disabilities, mental illness and veterans. All the NDNRC fact sheets are available here. When open enrollment started this past fall, we highlighted all these resources in our latest blog post entitled “Disability Resources for OE4” which is available by clicking here.
On his first day in office, President Trump issued an Executive Order aimed at “minimizing the economic burden of the ACA.” (For a copy of the Executive Order, click here.) To better understand what this means for the ACA, check out the blog post by Health Affairs which is available here.
Health Affairs also has a blog post on a new Republican proposal for an ACA replacement which was introduced this week by Senator Cassidy from Louisiana. That blog post is here. A copy of the actual bill is available here, and a one-page fact sheet on the bill from Senator Cassidy is available here along with a longer fact sheet which is available here.
Are you looking for an analysis of how things were in the individual market pre-ACA? The Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms has released an issue brief entitled “How Accessible and Affordable were Individual Market Health Plans before the Affordable Care Act? Depends Where You Lived”. To download a copy of this issue brief, click here.
Do you do enrollment in a Community Health Center (CHC)? The Kaiser Family Foundation has a new issue brief which looks at the importance of CHCs and how they’ve grown under the ACA. To learn more about how CHCs provide needed care to Medicaid beneficiaries and the uninsured and to download a copy of the issue brief, check out our news item here.
The University of Washington (UW), in partnership with Columbia University’s Health and Aging Policy Fellows Program, is pleased to announce a competitive postdoctoral fellowship for individuals with an interest in the intersection of aging, disability, and policy research. The fellowship includes a year of training in rehab policy research, and a year in DC interning with the Health and Aging Policy Fellows Program. For information and instructions on how to apply, click here.
This week, the NDNRC did a presentation for New Yorkers for Accessible Health Coverage on “The Affordable Care Act and People with Disabilities.” This presentation has been archived on the website on our “Webinars/Presentations” page.
The NDNRC has a statement on health reform entitled “Preserve the Protections Provided by the Affordable Care Act” where we call on Congress and the Administration to protect provisions in the ACA which have benefited people with disabilities. To read our blog posts 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.
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.
To access the archives for our weekly updates click here.