
White House Highlights Affordable Care Act “Champions of Change”
On March 21, the White House honored ten Champions of Change who are dedicated to improving access to health care. These individuals are helping others in their community understand the impact and opportunities from the health care law, the Affordable Care Act. “The President's health law gives hard working, middle-class ...

What effects the health care law has had and what’s to come
Two years after President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, some provisions have taken effect, while others still have two years to wait. In a recent poll by the non-partisan Kaiser Family Foundation, two in three Americans said they have not been affected by the law yet ...

Under the Affordable Care Act, 105 million Americans no longer face lifetime limits on health benefits
The Affordable Care Act prohibits health plans from imposing a lifetime dollar limit on most benefits received by Americans in any health plan renewing on or after September 23, 2010. While some plans already provided coverage with no limits on lifetime benefits, millions of Americans were previously in health plans ...

CMS offers new guidance to help lower income Americans obtain affordable, comprehensive coverage
On March 16, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released a final rule to help states make it easier for millions more Americans to enroll in comprehensive coverage under the Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance (CHIP) programs. This rule will help states implement the significant expansion in the ...

CBO report says healthcare law could cause as many as 20M to lose coverage
As many as 20 million Americans could lose their employer-provided coverage because of President Obama's healthcare reform law, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said in a new report Thursday. The figure represents the worst-case scenario, CBO says, and the law could just as well increase the number of people with ...

Health reform law saves $2.1 billion for 3.6 million Americans with Medicare
Nearly 3.6 million people with Medicare saved $2.1 billion on their prescription drugs in 2011 thanks to the Affordable Care Act according to data issued today by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Savings for people with Medicare will increase over time. According to a new report issued ...

The high risk of high-risk pools
When the health reform law’s high-risk insurance pools launched last summer, there was a lot worry that the new coverage option would be swamped by demand from uninsured individual. Then, there was worry about too little demand: The insurance pools saw anemic enrollment, with some states enrolling just a few ...

Study: Premiums could rise 25 percent without insurance mandate
Insurance premiums would rise by as much as 25 percent if the healthcare law is implemented without an individual mandate, according to a new analysis from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The Supreme Court will decide this summer whether the coverage mandate is constitutional, and how much — if any ...

HHS to give states more flexibility to implement health reform
The Department of Health and Human Services today released a bulletin outlining proposed policies that will give states more flexibility and freedom to implement the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act ensures all Americans have access to quality, affordable health insurance. To achieve this goal, the law ensures that ...

Status as a grandfathered health plan
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act NCCS endorsed Cancer Leadership Council comments The Honorable Kathleen Sebelius Secretary Department of Health and Human Services 200 Independence Avenue, SW Washington, DC 20201 RE: OCIIO-9991-IFC: Interim Final Rules for Group Health Plans and Health Insurance Coverage Relating to Status as a Grandfathered Health ...