Filling the need for trusted information on national health issues
This Visualizing Health Policy takes a look at recent trends in employer-sponsored insurance, including average premium increases for workers with family coverage, the average yearly cost of premiums for single and family coverage and how those costs have increased in the past decade, along with the prevalence of health promotion…
Larry Levitt’s November 2014 post looks at the challenges with people not understanding basic health insurance concepts as millions of them evaluate and choose health plans during open enrollment season for insurance in 2015.
A major piece of the Affordable Care Act will first take effect January 1 when larger employers will be required to offer coverage to their workers or face penalties. How do the penalties work and how are they being phased in? To help reporters understand and cover these issues, the Kaiser Family Foundation held a web briefing exclusively for journalists.
A new Kaiser Family Foundation survey of insurance brokers and assistance programs examines the help they provided to consumers during the 2015 open enrollment period for Affordable Care Act coverage. The 2015 Survey of Health Insurance Marketplace Assister Programs and Brokers provides estimates of the number of people helped and…
As fall approaches, we can expect to hear more about how employers are adapting their health plans for 2016 open enrollments. One topic likely to garner a good deal of attention is how the Affordable Care Act’s high cost plan tax (HCPT), sometimes called the “Cadillac plan” tax or “Cadillac tax,” is affecting employer decisions about their health benefits. The tax takes effect in 2018.
The potential of facing an HCPT assessment as soon as 2018 is encouraging employers to assess their current health benefits and consider cost reductions to avoid triggering the tax. Some employers announced that they made changes in 2014 in anticipation of the HCPT, and more are likely to do so as the implementation date gets closer.
Share of Potentially-Affected Employers Could Grow to 30% in 2023, 42% in 2028, Analysis Finds New projections from the Kaiser Family Foundation estimate that one in four employers (26%) offering health benefits could be subject to the Affordable Care Act’s tax on high-cost health plans, also known as the “Cadillac…
Larry Levitt’s August 2015 piece analyzes Affordable Care Act replacement plans proposed by 2016 Republican presidential candidates, and compares them to the health care law. The post is now available at the Los Angeles Times.
Since 2010, Deductibles for All Workers Have Risen Almost Three Times as Fast as Premiums and About Seven Times as Fast as Wages and Inflation Facing New Requirements, Few Employers Make Changes to Workers’ Hours Menlo Park, Calif. – Single and family premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance rose an average of…
This Visualizing Health Policy infographic illustrates the change in monthly premiums by county, and select cities, from 2014 to 2015 for a 40-year-old person covered by the second-lowest-cost silver “benchmark” plan in the Affordable Care Act’s insurance marketplaces. Premium changes were greatest in Summit County, Colo. (45% decrease) and southeastern Alaska…
In this column for The Wall Street Journal’s Think Tank, Drew Altman discusses a new Blue Cross Blue Shield Association report on “extreme price variation” in health care services and the limits of consumer information as a solution to the problem.
