Free health insurance? The idea seems like a relic from decades ago, when health care was relatively cheap and big corporations offered rich health benefits to employees. But reports say that for 2018 coverage, there is an increased availability of zero-premium health plans nationally in the insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act. Angela Hutchins…
More than 600,000 Americans signed up for coverage in the first four days of Open Enrollment for the health insurance exchanges, federal health officials said Thursday. That national average of 150,000 a day is higher than the 84,000 people a day who signed up during a 12-day initial enrollment period last year. The 601,462 figure reported Thursday came…
Is a new wave of health care “waivers’’ coming? Georgia and many other states may seek federal approval soon to make changes to their health care programs through waiver requests, lawmakers and experts say. Opening the door Tuesday to one particular waiver idea was the head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Seema Verma,…
Georgia’s average premium for the “silver’’ plans in the insurance exchange will rise by 48 percent for 2018, higher than the average increase nationally, a consulting firm reported Wednesday. The analysis from Avalere found that premiums will increase by an average of 34 percent nationwide for silver plans, the most popular exchange policies. Georgia’s premium hike…
Confused about the fate of “repeal and replace,” about big premium hikes, about “insurer bailouts’’’ being eliminated? The political roller coaster that the Affordable Care Act has been riding may have left you wondering what is still standing in terms of the 2010 health law. Actually, much remains the same. Not only is the ACA…
For most people, the biggest attraction in the bipartisan health care bill in the Senate is the renewal of federal cost-sharing payments to insurers, which President Trump recently cut off. Approval could help stabilize the exchange markets now jolted by impending price hikes. But individuals ages 30 to 64 who earn too much money to…
On one level, the White House’s pledge late Thursday to stop cost-sharing payments to health insurers under the Affordable Care Act won’t make a major difference in Georgia. That’s because three of the four health insurers offering coverage on the state exchange have already factored in the likely elimination of the payments in their huge 2018 premium…
President Trump signed an executive order Thursday that would potentially ease rules on “association health plans’’ and on the sale of short-term, low-cost insurance policies. Because federal agencies must develop the regulations and guidance for these changes, no significant changes will occur for months. Trump said Thursday that “with these actions we are moving toward lower costs and more…
Details surrounding the 2018 health insurance exchanges appear as murky as ever, despite the demise this week of the latest U.S. Senate effort to change federal health law. And amid this uncertainty, open enrollment for exchange coverage begins just a month from now. Even the premium increases for Georgia’s 2018 exchange, approved this week by the…
State insurance officials Wednesday gave approval to premium increases of more than 50 percent for the four insurers participating in next year’s insurance exchange in Georgia. The officials said that the huge rate hikes assume that subsidies for insurers to lower consumers’ out-of-pocket costs will not be paid next year by the federal government. The premium increases…