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  • Considerations for Covering Over-the-Counter Contraception

    Policy Watch

    In October 2023, the Departments of the Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services issued a request for information to gather public input about the potential benefits, costs, and implementation considerations of requiring private health insurance plans to cover OTC preventive services and supplies without a prescription. This policy watch addresses key considerations for the implementation of insurance coverage for non-prescribed OTC contraceptives based on the lessons learned from KFF’s 2023 study of Insurance Coverage…

  • Health Insurance Market Reforms: Guaranteed Issue

    Fact Sheet

    Guaranteed issue laws require insurance companies to issue a health plan to any applicant - an individual or a group - regardless of the applicant's health status or other factors. Currently, in most states, insurance companies can deny nongroup coverage to people based on their health status or their medical expenses over the past year. This means that an uninsured person who develops a certain condition, such as breast cancer, might not be able to…

  • Private Insurers Expect to Pay $1 Billion in Rebates to Consumers This Year for Setting Premiums Too High Relative to Medical Costs

    News Release

    Private insurance companies are expecting to pay out $1 billion in rebates to consumers this fall under an Affordable Care Act provision that requires insurers to spend the bulk of customers’ premium payments on care, a new KFF analysis finds. Rebates are based on insurers’ experiences over the previous three years. This year’s total is roughly half the size of last year’s $2 billion, in part because 2021 was a less profitable year and because…

  • Recent Trends in Commercial Health Insurance Market Concentration

    Issue Brief

    Commercial health insurance markets remain highly concentrated across coverage types. However, the individual market, which consists mostly of the ACA Marketplaces, has attracted more insurers and witnessed greater insurer competition across a variety of measures since the implementation of the enhanced premium tax credits in 2021, according to a new Healthy System Tracker analysis.

  • KFF Survey Finds that a Majority of Individuals Who Buy Their Own Insurance Report Facing a Premium Increase

    Perspective

    People who buy their own insurance report that their insurers most recently requested premium increases averaging 20 percent, according to a new Kaiser survey examining the experiences and views of people who buy health coverage in the non-group or individual market. Overall roughly three in four people (77 percent) with non-group coverage report facing a premium increase with a current or previous insurer. Most say they paid the increase, but 16 percent of all policyholders…

  • Health Insurance Market Reforms: Portability

    Fact Sheet

    Most Americans have access to health insurance through an employer-sponsored health plan, a fact that has made changing or losing a job a complex issue for the purposes of maintaining health insurance. Moving to a new job can be hard if the employer does not offer health insurance, or if the new employer’s health plan is not as generous as the previous employer’s plan. And with limited protections for people with pre-existing conditions, many people…