Contributor: Joel Peyton
Topic: Medicaid, exchanges, Medical loss ratio
The Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act answered one question but leaves many others unanswered. A
new paper released by Milliman, the international actuarial firm, explores some of the challenges that stakeholders face as more parts of the Affordable Care Act come online in 2014.
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Contributor: Mark Cherry
Topic: Medicaid, Florida, hospitals
With the Supreme Court leaving the decision to expand Medicaid eligibility up to individual states, Florida has been seen as a state that will likely reject the invitation, and there's a lot of evidence to support that opinion. The case, after all, was "Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services." Gov. Rick Scott has publicly stated that he won't pursue Medicaid eligibility expansion, claiming that it is something the state cannot afford, even though the expansion is covered 100 percent by the federal government for the first few years and 90 percent after that.
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Contributor: Paula Wade
Topic: Medicaid, behavioral health
One of the most underappreciated impacts of the Affordable Care Act is its potential to shore up our critically underfunded public mental health system.
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Contributor: Lyda Phillips
Topic: exchanges, states
After months of assuming that the school would burn down before the homework was due, more than half the states in the union are going to be scrambling to create insurance exchanges before a Nov. 16, 2012, deadline to submit a plan.
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Contributor: Sheri Sellmeyer
Topic: Hospitals, physicians
Trade organizations representing physicians and hospitals rushed to endorse the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding healthcare reform on Thursday, but there were a few cautionary notes.
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Contributor: Bill Melville
Topic: Medicaid, Texas
For all the vitriol flowing from Texas after the Supreme Court upheld health reform, the ruling delivered a big mulligan to the state’s Medicaid program. The court ruling made Medicaid expansion optional by permitting states to decline the expansion without sacrificing their existing Medicaid funding.
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Contributor: Ric Gross
Topic: Medicaid, Supreme Court
When the Supreme Court announced its decision regarding the constitutionality of national healthcare reform, it quite possibly breathed new life into an overused—but true—healthcare cliché—“if you’ve seen one state Medicaid program…you’ve seen one state Medicaid program.” And believe me, that saying is so old, it hurts to type it. But due to a key ruling by the court, states once again have the ability to structure their Medicaid programs as they see fit—but with a financial caveat attached.
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Contributor: Paula Wade
Topic: Supreme Court Ruling
Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the Affordable Care Act almost entirely, states, insurers, employers, providers, hospitals and pharma have a great deal of work to do.
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Contributor: Mark Cherry
Topic: Supreme Court ruling, exchanges
Governor Rick Scott in Florida has already said that even if the Supreme Court upholds Obamacare, he doesn’t plan to implement the law until after the November elections, with the hope that Romney wins the presidency and releases all the states from obligations to provide affordable healthcare for citizens. While a lot of other recalcitrant Republican governors aren’t so impolitic to express this sentiment out loud, they are definitely thinking it.
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Contributor: Jane DuBose
Topic: Supreme Court ruling, healthcare costs
Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans arrived about 10 minutes late to the opening session of her organization’s annual meeting in Salt Lake City. Even with that short delay, there was already mumbling that maybe her tardiness was related to a ruling by the Supreme Court on healthcare reform.
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