Strategic Planning & Timelines
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- 04/13/2015
The ACA required states to make large-scale changes to their eligibility systems for Medicaid in order to create streamlined processing with the health plan coverage and subsidies that are available through health insurance marketplaces. To support these changes, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services made enhanced federal Medicaid matching funds available for states to update or build their systems, and states have also been given the opportunity of a cost allocation waiver that allows them to temporarily use this enhanced funding to support technology and services improvements to eligibility systems shared by Medicaid and other health and human services programs. This issue brief highlights examples of technology and services innovations that states are implementing in support of integration among health and human services programs and discusses common themes across efforts.
- 03/30/2015Enacted against a background of growing public- and private-sector interest in integrating enrollment, retention, and eligibility determination for health and human services programs, the Affordable Care Act included provisions specifically calling for an expansion of such efforts, using 21st-century information technology (IT) to improve consumer experience and streamline enrollment while lowering administrative costs and protecting program integrity. This report, which summarizes a multi-faceted research project sponsored by the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, describes integration efforts to date and explores promising strategies for the future.
- 03/30/2015The ACA is changing the traditional role of charity care programs as safety net providers. The ACA’s Medicaid expansion and subsidized marketplace plans are giving millions of uninsured Americans options instead of charity care. This brief explores how four charity care programs in different states – CareLink (TX), Portico Healthnet (MN), Ingham Health Plan (MI), and Kaiser Permanente’s Charitable Health Coverage program (multiple states) – are responding to the changing health care environment. It examines their benefit packages; membership and eligibility; outreach and enrollment strategies; financial models; and new roles in providing consumer assistance.
- 03/09/2015
In January 2014, the ACA extended access to health insurance coverage to an estimated 30 million previously uninsured people. This issue brief provides state-level estimates of the increased demand for physician and hospital services that is expected to result from expanded access and assesses the sufficiency of the existing supply of providers to accommodate the anticipated increase in demand. Increases of the magnitude likely to be generated by the Affordable Care Act will have modest effects on the demand for health services, and the existing supply of providers should be sufficient to accommodate this increased demand.
- 03/09/2015
The enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) ushered in sweeping changes to the U.S. health care system. While the law touched almost every aspect of our health care system, the parts of the law that have garnered the most attention, and generated the most controversy, are those relating to the availability and affordability of health insurance coverage. The coverage provisions in the law were aimed at improving access to insurance, enhancing the quality of coverage by imposing minimum benefit standards, and increasing the affordability of coverage through expanded public programs and new subsidies for private coverage. This brief examines these coverage provisions, providing an update on how they have been implemented and assessing their impact. It also discusses key issues looking ahead.
