States Revisit Insurer Benefit Requirements

The Affordable Care Act created standards for “essential health benefits” to ensure consumers’ health coverage would meet their needs. The law, however, also gives states flexibility in determining which services must be covered. In a new blog post, Justin Giovannelli and colleagues at Georgetown University Health Policy Institute's Center on Health Insurance Reforms explain that most states are continuing to define their essential benefits much as they had originally—despite the opportunity to revisit this decision for 2017 and beyond.