AAHD JOINS CACH PROJECT WITH CBPP
The American Association on Health and Disability (lead partner for the NDNRC) is happy to announce that we are joining a new project which is being launched by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The project, called the Consumer Assistance Coordination Hub (CACH), will support individuals and groups that provide enrollment assistance. To read more about this project, check out our news item.
CBPP continues to host its Health Reform: Beyond the Basics webinar series. Last month, they conducted four webinars addressing topics such as premium tax credits, determining income, plan design and penalties. These webinars have all been archived and links to them can be found in our news item. On Wednesday, they held another webinar on immigrant eligibility and they have archived that webinar as well.
Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released guidance on how Special Enrollment Periods (SEPs) will be extended for those individuals who have been affected by the recent hurricanes. To read more about the guidance, check out our news item.
You can also read the Health Affairs blog post on this CMS guidance.
The Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms also has a blog post that they published this week on some FAQs about coverage and the aftermath of natural disasters.
Open enrollment is now less than a month away and if you’re wondering how many people are enrolled in your area, check out the interactive map just released by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The map shows enrollment in the ACA marketplace by congressional district and enrollment in Medicaid by state.
Federal funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) expired at the end of September. A new issue brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation looks at how states have planned for this expiration and when states could run out of funding for their CHIP program. Check out our news item to download the issue brief or to view a map which summarizes the findings from the states.
A new analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Peterson Center on Healthcare looks at who is spending the most on out-of-pocket healthcare costs.
As we reported last week, the Senate ended its consideration of the latest ACA repeal and replace bill. We still continue to monitor any possible legislation on ACA, including repeal or market stabilization. We released a statement on health reform last November after the election where we outline the provisions of the ACA which we believe are vital to people with disabilities. In the statement entitled “Preserve the Protections Provided by the Affordable Care Act,” we call on Congress and the Administration to protect provisions in the ACA which have benefited people with disabilities.
The University of Washington, Healthy Aging & Physical Disability, Rehabilitation Research Training Center (RRTC) has released a plain language summary which compares Medicaid beneficiaries who are in a fee-for-service system vs. a managed care system. This plain language summary is entitled “How Have Recent Medicaid Changes Affected Beneficiaries with Disabilities?”
Are you looking for local partners to help with outreach to the disability community? The NDNRC has Community Outreach Collaboratives (COCs) which work to increase collaborations in the community, dissemination and outreach efforts and enrollment of people with disabilities in the ACA marketplace. You can find a COC, on the COC page of our website.
Archives of our weekly updates are available on the NDNRC website.