THE ACA IS TURNING 10
This month represents the 10-year anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law. Throughout the month we will be highlighting opportunities for you to celebrate what the ACA means for consumers and especially people with disabilities. Included in this celebration will be a Twitter chat on March 23 which represents the actual anniversary date of the ACA. Stay tuned to the NDNRC Update for opportunities to celebrate with us!
Earlier this week, the US Supreme Court agreed to hear the Texas vs US case which addresses the constitutionality of the ACA. It is important to remember that this case does not have any legal effect on the current marketplace and people who receive their health insurance coverage will continue to be covered and receive any premium assistance to which they are entitled while this case is pending before the Supreme Court. To learn more about this case and the timeline for when a decision could come out, check out our news item.
You can also read more about the Court’s decision to hear the case in the blog post from Health Affairs.
Previously, we reported on CMS’s proposed Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters (NBPP). Comments were due on the proposed rules earlier this week and AAHD joined comment letters expressing concerns over some of the proposed changes. Links to these coalition letters can be found in our news item. For links to the proposed rules and other related documents from CMS, check out our prior news item from when the proposed rules were released.
AAHD is working with Community Catalyst and other partners in conducting outreach to educate individuals about health insurance literacy, special enrollment periods (SEPs) and other issues related to healthcare enrollment. Recently, several new resources were released including graphics like the one below which encourages people who now have health insurance to not delay getting the care they need. Links to the graphics can be found in our blog post. Community Catalyst has an Outreach Hub which has a wide variety of graphics addressing many different areas. To learn more about the project we are doing with Community Catalyst, check out our earlier news item.
In January, CMS issued guidance to states on what it would consider if states wanted to implement a Medicaid block grant for their state. (You can learn more about the CMS proposal in our news item.) AAHD has significant concerns about the Medicaid block grant proposal and what it would mean for people with disabilities. See our blog post for AAHD’s statement of opposition and our news item on resources from other organizations. This week, we added a blog post from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities looking at how the block grant proposal would affect more people than just healthy adults.
Addressing the issue of surprise medical billing has been a hot topic recently. The two main proposals for solving surprise medical billing have been centered around rate setting and dispute resolution. The Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms (CHIR) has two blog posts that looks at the research that they’ve done on what states have done in these two areas. Links for these two blogs are as follows:
- Addressing Surprise Billing by Setting Payment Standards for Out-of-Network Providers
- How States Are Using Independent Dispute Resolution to Resolve Out-of-Network Payments in Surprise Billing
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.