Washington, D.C. — A key feature of the United States’ health care system is the extent to which access to health insurance is tied to Americans’ employment and income. The ongoing public health crisis has resulted in millions of Americans experiencing job loss or significant fluctuations in income, consequentially forfeiting their employer-sponsored or publicly subsidized health coverage. This change in type or loss of health insurance, also known as churn, is the focus of a new Center for American Progress issue brief released today. The piece examines both how churn impairs the quality of care and increases administrative costs and out-of-pocket expenses as well as what policymakers can do to limit the phenomenon, including:
- Increasing public investments in enrollment assistance, including navigators and marketing resources
- Allowing adult Medicaid enrollees to maintain continuous enrollment over a 12-month period, similar to the option states have to maintain continuous eligibility for children in Medicaid and/or the Children’s Health Insurance Program
- Expanding postpartum Medicaid coverage
- Auto-enrolling or streamlining eligible uninsured people into coverage
- Smoothing enrollees’ transition between Medicaid and marketplace coverage by aligning plan designs, benefits, and encouraging insurers to offer multimarket plans
Please click here to read “Building On the ACA To Reduce Health Insurance Disruptions” by Nicole Rapfogel.
For more information on this topic or to speak with an expert, please contact Colin Seeberger at [email protected] or 202-741-6292.