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April 26, 2013 - Eighty-four million people―nearly half of all working-age U.S. adults―went without health insurance for a time last year or were underinsured because of high out-of-pocket costs relative to income, according to a new study based on findings from the Commonwealth Fund's 2012 Biennial Health Insurance Survey.
March 12, 2013 - This issue brief examines state action to select an essential health benefits benchmark plan and finds that 24 states and the District of Columbia selected a plan. All but five states will have a small-group plan as their benchmark.
February 1, 2013 - Because states are the primary regulators of health insurance, this issue brief examines new state action on a subset of protections—such as guaranteed access to coverage and a ban on preexisting condition exclusions—that go into effect in 2014.
November 28, 2012 - The Affordable Care Act changes the small-group insurance market substantially beginning in 2014, but most changes do not apply to self-insured plans. This exemption provides an opening for small employers with healthier workers to avoid broader sharing of health care risk. The authors of this brief conclude that regulation of stop-loss or reinsurance can prevent such adverse selection and increase stability in small-group insurance coverage.
November 1, 2012 - A new Commonwealth Fund study highlights a nearly decade-long trend of declining health insurance coverage and rising costs for workers in small businesses, particularly employees making less than $15 an hour.
April 5, 2013 - This blog post describes the new guidance on how the Affordable Care Act's private insurance market reforms—including guaranteed access to health care coverage and the ban on preexisting condition exclusions—will be enforced.