via the Washington Post:

...The proposal at issue would allow undocumented immigrants to buy health insurance through the state exchange, a policy change that state analysts predict would lead to coverage for about one-third of the state’s undocumented population, or 82,500 people. The move would add Maryland to a small number of states targeting the group in an effort to shore up gaps in health care access — a goal that has faced head winds in Congress.

Supporters say the proposal dovetails with Gov. Wes Moore’s goal of eliminating child poverty and would reduce overall premiums and care provided by hospitals free of charge to the uninsured. But instead of passing a bill that would open the insurance marketplace, which would require a federal waiver, lawmakers instead approved legislation that calls for the Maryland Health Department and the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange to study options for undocumented immigrants’ health care needs to guide their work moving forward.

via the California Dept. of Justice website:

Attorney General Bonta Announces $2.1 Million Settlement Against Companies Over Sham Health Insurance Plans

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta today announced a $2.1 million settlement against two companies, Shared Health Alliance, Inc. (SHA) and Alliance for Shared Health (ASH), to resolve allegations that they offered and deceptively advertised sham health insurance and violated insurance regulations that protect consumers. ASH, a nonprofit corporation that purported to be a healthcare sharing ministry (HCSM), created, operated, and sold unauthorized health insurance through its for-profit administrative vendor, SHA.

via the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS):

In December 2022, 92,340,585 individuals were enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP.

• 85,280,085 individuals were enrolled in Medicaid in December 2022, an increase of 425,110

• 7,060,500 individuals were enrolled in CHIP in December 2022, an increase of 87,296 individuals from November 2022.

• Since February 2020, enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP has increased by 21,690,345 individuals (30.7%).
  • Medicaid enrollment has increased by 21,474,995 individuals (33.7%).
  • CHIP enrollment has increased by 215,350 individuals (3.1%).

The Medicaid enrollment increases are likely driven by COVID-19 and the continuous enrollment condition in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).

In December 2022, 2,360,820 applications for Medicaid and CHIP were submitted directly to states.

via Connect for Health Colorado:

DENVER— In its tenth year of enrollment operations, Connect for Health Colorado, the state’s official health insurance marketplace, is providing more financial help for health insurance, offering more local enrollment assistance and enrolling more people into coverage than ever before.

In a report published today, Connect for Health Colorado provides a comprehensive look at the Open Enrollment Period data and outcomes. (Connect for Health Colorado released preliminary enrollment totals from the Open Enrollment Period at the end of January.) This new report includes information such as average costs and enrollments by county and the significance of Broker and Assister enrollment assistance. Here are the highlights:

Making Plans More Affordable

I was out of town for much of last week (my son's robotics team made it to the state championship) so I'm afraid I'm playing a bit of catch up today, so I kind of missed out on writing about this development which, while expected, is both depressing and enraging. Via the NY Times:

A federal judge in Texas issued a preliminary ruling invalidating the Food and Drug Administration’s 23-year-old approval of the abortion pill mifepristone, an unprecedented order that — if it stands through court challenges — could make it harder for patients to get abortions in states where abortion is legal, not just in those trying to restrict it.

The drug will continue to be available at least in the short-term since the judge, Matthew J. Kacsmaryk, stayed his own order for seven days to give the F.D.A. time to ask an appeals court to intervene.

Less than an hour after Judge Kacsmaryk’s ruling, a judge in Washington state issued a ruling in another case, which contradicted the Texas decision, ordering the F.D.A. to make no changes to the availability of mifepristone in the 18 states that filed that lawsuit.

via the Maryland Insurance Administration:

Consumer Advisory: Maryland-issued health insurance policies are not impacted by Braidwood Management, Inc. v. Becerra; preventative services, including PrEP, are still required to be covered

​​​BALTIMORE – Health insurance policies (including HMO plans) issued in Maryland are not impacted by a recent ruling by a federal judge in Texas that health plans do not have to cover certain preventive services.

October 2022:

Texas: Friday Health Plans Bails; Another ~230K Enrollees Will Have To Pick A Different Day Of The Week

It was just four days ago that Bright Healthcare, which had been aggressively expanding their individual market coverage area footprint as recently as a year ago, suddenly announced that they were doing a complete 180 and instead pulling out of virtually the entire individual & small group markets nationally starting in January 2023.

...Well, just one day after the Bright Healthcare bombshell news broke, Texas-based health insurance broker Jenny Chumbley Hogue sounded the alarm on another large carrier bailing on Texas next year:

In February, I wrote about how the state of Georgia, in an eyebrow-raising move, announced that they were moving from the federal ACA exchange (HealthCare.Gov) onto their own state-based ACA exchange.

While numerous other states have already done the same thing (and several more are in the process of doing so as well), Georgia's move to their own enrollment platform was especially noteworthy for two reasons:

First, because it represents as complete 180-degree turn from their prior attempts (over the course of several years) to eliminate any formal ACA exchange (federal or state-based) in favor of outsourcing it to private insurance carriers & 3rd-party web brokers.

Secondly, because of the timeframe involved:

My ongoing Braidwood v. Becerra post has grown so long and has had so many updates that it was becoming unwieldy, so I started a new post.

Kaiser Family Foundation Vice President Cynthia Cox posted a thread on Twitter yesterday which gives an brief overview of which of the preventative services required to be covered at no cost to the enrollee by the Affordable Care Act are actually threatened by yesterday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor.

Before I get to that, it's important to clarify where the list of services comes from. Again, via the Kaiser Family Foundation:

4/01/23: See important update at bottom.

Back in early February, I wrote:

If this was any other state besides Georgia--even any other GOP-controlled state--I'd say good for them since it would presumably just mean that they were the latest state to move to their own state-based exchange (which is how the ACA was originally envisioned anyway).

This would give them the ability to hook the SBM into their state databases for auto-enrolling residents receiving SNAP benefits/etc into $0-premium coverage, or to integrate supplemental subsidies as nearly a dozen states do today, and so forth. There's several upsides to moving to an SBM, up to & including reducing the user fees (although those have been significantly reduced on the federal exchange in recent years anyway).