Healthcare Reform This is the Healthcare Reform Category

New 2011 open-enrollment periods for children OLYMPIA, Wash. – The individual health insurance market will have two special open-enrollment periods for children this year. Parents who want to add their children to their individual health plans or buy child-only plans can do so from March 15-April 30, 2011 and from Sept. 15-Oct. 31, 2011. Insurance [...]

Regence responds to the “Cease and Desist” order issued by Washington Insurance Commissioner, Mike Kreidler to stop enrolling children under the age of 19 outside of open enrollment period.  Children can once again be enrolled using the Standard Health Questionnaire for effective dates of November or December 1st.  In addition, the annual open enrollment period [...]

Registration is now open for our series of informational seminars on the changes to Regence Blue Shield individual plans and Medicare changes for 2010.  Click here to find out more and register today.

The Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2010 signed by the President on July 22, 2010, did not extend the COBRA premium reduction.  Read more at http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/cobra.html

Tagged with: ARRA • COBRA • Unemployment

Another week and another set of regulations has been released by the Administration to aid the implementation of health care reform.  This set addresses the law’s requirement that health plans and health insurers provide coverage for certain preventive services without imposing any cost-sharing requirements (e.g., copayment, coinsurance, deductibles).  The new regulations are effective are effective [...]

Tagged with: Healthcare reform • HHS • preventive care • regulations

When policymakers were crafting the comprehensive health care reform legislation enacted as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, H.R. 3590) and the Health Care and Education Affordability Reconciliation Act of 2010 (H.R. 4872), an oft‐repeated promise was “If you like your current coverage, you can keep it.” To fulfill that promise, the reform [...]

Tagged with: grandfather plan • grandfathering • Healthcare reform • PPACA

Summary and impact of PPACA Insurance Market Provisions – as compiled by AHIP. Health Care Reform Bill Insurance Market Provisions Timeline

Tagged with: Healthcare reform • PPACA • timeline

Healthcare Reform…what does it mean for you? On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) which revised by the House Reconciliation Bill that was signed into effect on March 30, 2010. With this new law, the employer based system of providing healthcare to employees is maintained. [...]

Tagged with: Healthcare reform • lunch and learn • medicare

This recent article appearing on MSN tells us that a growing chorus of medical professionals, researchers and ordinary citizens contend that the touchy topic of individual responsibility has been ignored in the health reform debate. Click here to read this thought-provoking article.

Tagged with: Healthcare reform