Health Care Delivery

In response to the questions raised about its objectivity and the methodology of its projections, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released a letter defending the impartiality of its work and explaining how it estimated the impact of House Republicans’ proposed healthcare bill, the American Health Care Act (AHCA).

A new study indicates that expanded coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) added strain on emergency medical services, resulting in slower ambulance response times.

Among wealthy countries, the United States maintains the most substantial socioeconomic disparities in access to healthcare; however, these disparities were reduced when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was implemented, according to a new study in Health Affairs.

Every week, The American Journal of Managed Care® recaps the top managed care news of the week, and you can now listen to it on our podcast, Managed Care Cast.

This week, the top managed care articles included a report from the Congressional Budget Office on the impact of eliminating the cost-sharing reduction payments; a decision from CMS to eliminate 2 mandatory bundled payment programs; and a new value-based alliance that called for ending use of a test for diagnosing heart attacks.

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health studied an average of 27 national polls on the Affordable Care Act taken by 12 different organizations.

Since taking office, President Donald Trump has toyed with the idea of eliminating the cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments to insurers under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Doing so would actually decrease the number of uninsured individuals starting in 2020, but would increase the federal deficit by $194 billion from 2017 through 2026, according to a new report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

The notice says some states have given insurers the ability to build a cushion into silver plan rates to account for the possible loss of cost-sharing reductions. An extra 3 weeks would give plans in more states the chance to do the same thing.

Large employers that self-insure can avoid the tax, but that option is off limits to small businesses like restaurants or convenience stores.

A new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation examines preliminary data on premium rates and plan offerings on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges.

Every week, The American Journal of Managed Care® recaps the top managed care news of the week, and you can now listen to it on our podcast, Managed Care Cast.

This week, the top managed care stories included bipartisan proposals for fixing the Affordable Care Act (ACA); FDA approved a targeted therapy for patients with acute myeloid leukemia who have a rare genetic mutation; and a study found that more patients have gained access to clinical trials after the ACA was implemented.

Medical bankruptcy is indefensible and even if patients are willing to bankrupt themselves to purchase a cure, doesn't mean that is how pricing and reimbursement of treatments should be handled, said Darius Lakdawalla, PhD, Quintiles Chair in Pharmaceutical Development and Regulatory Innovation at the School of Pharmacy at the University of Southern California