The HHS budget released yesterday calls for $1.5 billion to implement (at least in part) the federal exchange for 33 states. Despite Republican’s ongoing refusal to increase funding, with some creative financing HHS maintains “we’ll be ready. No matter what.” (more…)
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) ran a very straightforward, no-nonsense summary of health care updates to consider during this fall’s “open enrollment” period. It was written with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in mind, and its impacts and/or changes to the health care system in 2013.
Numbered below are the WSJ article’s “five things you need to know as you sift through your plan options over the next few weeks.” The summaries following each are paraphrased from the more specific descriptions provided by the author. (more…)
The Northwest Medical Informatics Symposium (NMIS) titled ‘Bringing IT All Together’ will be held next week on September 24-25. The event is taking place at the Davenport Hotel in Spokane, where the theme will be “Strategies for Confronting the Challenges of Health Information Technology.”
The two-day event will be addressing topics like (more…)
This post was originally published at Crosscut.com.
This year’s campaign for governor has largely been focused on jobs and education, and for good reason. Those two issues are central concerns to many voters. (more…)
The Washington Health Benefit Exchange continues to move full speed ahead with six meetings planned for this week. With a total of $151,791,012, Washington so far has received more money in federal grants than any other state, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s statehealthfacts.org. (more…)
This week the Washington Health Benefit Exchange Policy Committee, Operations Committee and the Navigator Technical Advisory Committee will all be having meetings. As usual, the meetings will be open to the public, with the following information provided today via email: (more…)
Last Thursday and Friday, Washington state gubernatorial candidates Jay Inslee (D) and Rob McKenna (R) took part in live chats hosted online by the Seattle Times. While both candidates fielded questions concerning various issues from education to tax policies, healthcare policy appeared to receive a large amount of attention during both chats. (more…)
The ACA’s ruling that allows states to opt out of expansion of Medicaid has created an entirely new concern: a gap in coverage between the haves and the have-nots that includes only the have-too-much-and-too-little. (more…)
Eight new health care plans have been certified as Coordinated Care Organizations (CCOs), to begin serving Oregon communities beginning August 1, 2012, according to a news release at Oregon Health Authority.
Oregon’s Coordinated Care Organization program, created with bi-partisan support in the state legislature earlier this year, is designed to provide care for OHC/Medicaid enrolled populations. The intent in creating the new CCOs is to manage, deliver, and coordinate mental and physical health care, efficiently and affordably. (more…)
The Washington Health Benefit Exchange (HBE) Board will meet tomorrow, June 13, at the Seattle Airport Marriot; Seattle Ballroom. On the meeting’s agenda are discussions about premium aggregation, the consumer rating system, and the navigator program, as well as actions on items like grant oversight, TAC approval, and criteria for qualified health plans.
If you’d like updates from the meeting as they happen, be sure to follow @StateOfReform over on twitter (more…)
