scholarly journals The Health Insurance Exchange: An Oligopolistic Market In Need Of Reform

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 569
Author(s):  
Wali I. Mondal

<p>Until the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act commonly known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was signed into law in March 2010, United States was the only industrialized rich country in the world without a universal healthcare insurance coverage. While pioneering works by Burns (1956, 1966) focused on the Social Security Act of 1935 in addressing the health insurance needs of U.S. retired population through Medicare, and later Medicaid was created by the Social Security Amendments of 1965, U.S. health insurance has remained a private, for-profit venture. The passage of ACA was one of the most contentious legislations of modern times. Soon after it was signed into law, various groups of private citizens and a number of States challenged some provisions of the ACA; however, the Supreme Court of the United States upheld its key provisions. A segment of the Congress remains opposed to the ACA on ideological ground and continues to challenge it with a variety of legal maneuvers. Notwithstanding the political or ideological arguments for or against the ACA, the objective of this paper is to analyze the competitiveness of the health insurance marketplace which opened on October 1, 2013. In doing so, the paper will address the structure of the health insurance exchange and suggest ways and means to make it more competitive.</p>

2021 ◽  
pp. 107755872110158
Author(s):  
Priyanka Anand ◽  
Dora Gicheva

This article examines how the Affordable Care Act Medicaid expansions affected the sources of health insurance coverage of undergraduate students in the United States. We show that the Affordable Care Act expansions increased the Medicaid coverage of undergraduate students by 5 to 7 percentage points more in expansion states than in nonexpansion states, resulting in 17% of undergraduate students in expansion states being covered by Medicaid postexpansion (up from 9% prior to the expansion). In contrast, the growth in employer and private direct coverage was 1 to 2 percentage points lower postexpansion for students in expansion states compared with nonexpansion states. Our findings demonstrate that policy efforts to expand Medicaid eligibility have been successful in increasing the Medicaid coverage rates for undergraduate students in the United States, but there is evidence of some crowd out after the expansions—that is, some students substituted their private and employer-sponsored coverage for Medicaid.


1996 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-75
Author(s):  
A.S.

In Planned Parenthood Affiliates of Michigan v. Engler (73 F.3d 634 (6th Cir. 1996)), the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that § 400.109(a) of the Social Welfare Act of Michigan (Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 400.109(a) (1994)) impermissibly conflicts with the Medicaid Act (Social Security Act tit. XIX, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1396 et seq. (1988)) as modified by the 1994 Hyde Amendment (Pub. L. No. 103-112, § 509, 107 Stat. 1082-1113 (1994)), insofar as the § 400.109(a) only provides state funding for abortions necessary to save the life of a mother, and not for abortions resulting from rape or incest. The court held that the Hyde Amendment defines medically necessary abortions that must be funded by states participating in the federal Medicaid program, and that the amendment is not merely a federal appropriations bill.


Author(s):  
Bert Kestenbaum

AbstractThis chapter discusses in detail the procedure followed to identify a 1-in-10 sample of persons born between 1870 and 1899 who resided in the United States at the time of their death at ages 105–109 for men and 108 or 109 for women. We tabulate the characteristics of these “semi-supercentenarians” and offer some observations about the level of their mortality. The procedure for identifying semi-supercentenarians consists of (1) casting a net to find candidates and then (2) determining for which candidates can both date of birth and date of death be validated. The net used to find candidates in the United States is different from the nets typically used in other counties: in the United States we use the file of enrollments in the federal government’s Medicare health insurance program. Some of the information needed for the verification step comes from another administrative file – the Social Security Administration’s file of applications for a new or replacement social security card. Verification of the date of death is accomplished by querying the National Death Index. Dates of birth are verified by using online resources to access the records of several censuses conducted many decades earlier.


2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-49
Author(s):  
Jacob Goldin ◽  
Ithai Z Lurie ◽  
Janet McCubbin

Abstract We evaluate a randomized outreach study in which the IRS sent informational letters to 3.9 million households that paid a tax penalty for lacking health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Drawing on administrative data, we study the effect of this intervention on taxpayers’ subsequent health insurance enrollment and mortality. We find the intervention led to increased coverage during the subsequent two years and reduced mortality among middle-aged adults over the same time period. The results provide experimental evidence that health insurance coverage can reduce mortality in the United States.


1971 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 134-148
Author(s):  
H. E. Hilleboe ◽  
A. Barkhuus

It is rather amazing that in 1971, the United States does not have a comprehensive health policy or national health plan. Our advanced science and technology have not taken root on a broad basis in the health field. Yet categorical planning has been done in several fields of health ever since the enactment of the Social Security Act in 1935. Planning was initiated in the fields of maternal and child health and crippled children by the federal Children's Bureau. This article gives some examples of both categorical and general approaches to health planning, how they came into being, and what planning concepts and processes were developed and used. These examples may be of some value to planners who have to employ categorical approaches—largely pragmatic—pending the time that comprehensive national health planning becomes feasible. The categorical areas chosen for discussion are: (a) health facilities, (b) heart, cancer, stroke, and kidney disease (Regional Medical Programs), (c) mental health, and (d) American Indian health. The general area includes comprehensive health planning. Following the passage of the Social Security Act of 1935, personal and environmental health services have been fragmented into a number of pieces. In 1971, utter confusion reigns in the federal and state structure and functions of health. Hopefully, the Congress may soon realize that a national system of health services is essential to provide 205 million people with the quality and distribution of services—without financial barriers—that $70 billion dollars a year should buy. Certainly the experiences gained with the categorical approaches to health planning can be of value to governmental leaders and their advisers as they prepare comprehensive health policies and national health plans for the 1970s.


ILR Review ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 610-627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Buchmueller ◽  
John Dinardo ◽  
Robert G. Valletta

During the past two decades, union density has declined in the United States and employer provision of health benefits has changed substantially in extent and form. Using individual survey data spanning the years 1983–97 combined with employer survey data for 1993, the authors update and extend previous analyses of private-sector union effects on employer-provided health benefits. They find that the union effect on health insurance coverage rates has fallen somewhat but remains large, due to an increase over time in the union effect on employee “take-up” of offered insurance, and that declining unionization explains 20–35% of the decline in employee health coverage. The increasing union take-up effect is linked to union effects on employees' direct costs for health insurance and the availability of retiree coverage.


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