New data released today shows that 2.5 million more young adults are covered by health insurance due to health care reform, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Traditionally, young adults have been the population least likely to have health insurance. To address this, the ACA ensured starting in September 2010, that all young adults are able...
Health care advocates in the Save BadgerCare Coalition agree with the Department of Health Services (DHS) on at least one thing – that the BadgerCare changes proposed by DHS can’t be made without a waiver of the “maintenance of effort” (MOE) requirements of the federal health care reform law. Those provisions of the Affordable Care Act...
W-2 Costs Far Less than Article StatesThe Journal Sentinel ran a PolitiFact column Sunday on the subject of Tommy Thompson’s statement on December 1 (while announcing his candidacy for the U.S. Senate) that while he was governor, "we ended welfare." For what it’s worth the Journal Sentinel gave that statement a rating of “mostly true,”...
A federal official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced today that the agency probably won’t be able to act as quickly as the Walker Administration had hoped on a long and complicated waiver request that would allow the state to make sweeping changes to BadgerCare. However, the letter from CMS to Secretary...
Continued Debate over a Slight OCI Technical Change Is Telling Although officials in the Walker Administration have said on a number of occasions that they plan to implement the Health Insurance Exchanges required by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), we still haven’t seen the Exchange legislation that they said we could expect in the fall....
What may sound like a wonky insurance industry term is poised to have a real impact on health care consumers through the health care reform law. Recent regulations and developments around implementation of the medical loss ratio (MLR) standards have been in the news both nationally and in Wisconsin in recent weeks and months. The...
Fifty Wisconsin organizations sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius late last week urging her to deny the recent request from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) for a waiver of federal maintenance of effort (MOE) requirements. As WCCF explained in a short summary of the DHS proposals, the proposed waiver is...
Just as Wisconsin was submitting proposals to federal officials to significantly increase BadgerCare premiums and copays, a new study added to the evidence that increased cost-sharing can be counterproductive. The study published in the November 14 New England Journal of Medicine examined the effects of drug copays for patients who have...
The recession has significantly increased poverty and unemployment, and with those changes there has been a large increase in adults without health insurance. Yet despite those trends, the number of uninsured children in the U.S. dropped by 1 million from 2008 to 2010 (from 6.9 million to 5.9 million), according to a report released...
Well, no, not exactly. But the Republican controlled House of Representatives did bring a whole new meaning to the phrase “you say tomato…” As we’re sitting down with family and friends this week, we are thankful for so much – including a delicious Thanksgiving meal. For many in Wisconsin, meals that are both healthy and filling are far...
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