The Obama administration announced Friday that 800,000 people who enrolled in insurance policies through HealthCare.gov have received incorrect tax information. As a result, they have been urged to avoid filing tax returns until the error gets resolved. Beyond the overall issue that comes with an error like this, which officials say they can’t identify the […]
Open enrollment kicks off tomorrow for individuals and businesses looking to purchase health insurance, and with the healthcare landscape more politicized than ever, there will be plenty to watch for. Federal officials significantly downsized expectations this year, after a tumultuous, bitterly partisan but ultimately successful start to last year’s inaugural season under Obamacare that enrolled […]
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Officials at the U.S. Health and Human Services Department are predicting a significant reduction in the amount of new enrollees through the federal health exchange, Healthcare.gov, from 13 million predicted by the Congressional Budget Office down to between 9 and 9.9 million. According to a memo released yesterday by HHS, the possible drop in new […]
The second enrollment season of Obamacare is just around the corner, and while the first year was given a thorough political challenge, year two is in many ways even more important. Kaiser Health News, in a collaboration piece with the Washington Post, notes that in the second year, outreach efforts to the most elusive uninsured […]
A report from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform highlighted by HIStalk gives an unflattering view of the communication breakdown that took place in the runup to and aftermath of the HealthCare.gov launch. It makes for some intriguing political theater, albeit at the expense of Democrats, even as it demonstrates […]
Earlier this week it was Apple, now it’s the federal Department of Health and Human Services. Just months ahead of the next enrollment season, a hacker reportedly gained access to a portion of HealthCare.gov in late July and uploaded malicious software. The Wall Street Journal reports that, while the hack occurred, no evidence suggests that personal […]
Patient expectations continue to evolve, and healthcare practices that fail to adapt risk more than just revenue—they risk losing trust.
It looks like U.S. CTO Todd Park is headed back west to the Silicon Valley after five years with the administration, starting with his role as CTO for the Department of Health and Human Services. He’s reported to be taking on a new role in the administration to recruit more technology experts to run federal […]
HealthCare.gov was a flop when it launched in October 2013. We all remember how impossible it was for Americans to buy health insurance through the website in the months following the launch. It was a national joke and the subject of late night comedy for months. After throwing enough money and computer experts at the […]
A recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation details the many efforts to enroll people into health plans offered through state and federal health insurance marketplaces, offering a snapshot of a few successes and remaining challenges in fully implementing the ACA. It’s interesting to get a sense of the more mechanical implementation of healthcare reform […]
Conventional wisdom is that the federal subsidies that help people buy insurance through state and federal exchanges will survive the current court ruling against them. However, the review by the full judicial panel of the DC circuit court will not happen until this fall. That gives people plenty of time to think about losing health […]
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His plugged-in friends said he was a fool not to buy health insurance on the federal marketplace. Mark Gaines knew they were right. He was, after all, a 26-year-old law school graduate. But if a judge had asked him for a summation of the Affordable Care Act last fall, it would have been a one-sentence […]
While an unprecedented 6 million people have gained Medicaid coverage since September, mostly as a result of the Affordable Care Act, more than 1.7 million more are still waiting for their applications to be processed—with some stuck in limbo for as long as eight months, according to officials in 15 large states. The scope of […]
Only two of the 36 states that relied on the federal insurance exchange this year -- Idaho and New Mexico -- plan to set up their own online marketplaces in time for the next open enrollment beginning Nov. 15. Both those states had moved to run thei...
There’s never a dull moment at HHS these days. First there was the mad, last-minute “Sign up, sign up, sign up!” rush to the enrollment deadline, then Medicare released all that price data and then Secretary Kathleen Sebelius resigned. I’m sure everyone in the department is glad they have some time to regroup before the […]
In case you haven’t already heard, the White House wants you to buy health insurance. Its latest promotional pitch is a play on March Madness that looks more like a Buzzfeed article than a promo for health insurance. The “ACA Bracket” pits “16 sweetest reasons to get covered” against one another — from “birth control […]