health insurance news

Governing.com–A total of $230 million was given to ten states by the federal government’s Department of Health and Human Services. The money will be used to aid the development of health insurance exchanges in those states.

The Boston Globe–The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) announced that it will give Massachusetts $11.6 million to help the state make its health insurance exchange compliant with the Affordable Care Act.

The Boston Globe – As the costs of health insurance rise, some small businesses in Massachusetts have begun terminating health coverage for their employees and encouraging those employees to enroll in state-subsidized coverage. State offices aren’t convinced yet that there’s a trend.

Politico – Reading the health reform news in Massachusetts last week, you could easily see the glass as half full or half empty. Health reform advocates celebrated a new report showing that, despite the devastating economic slump, the vast majority of Massachusetts residents had not dropped health insurance coverage. Just 4.8 percent of the state’s residents went without insurance, the lowest rate in the country.

The New Health Dialogue – Starting in 2014, the new health reform law will expand Medicaid coverage to most of the population below 133 percent of federal poverty level, amounting to about 15.9 million newly eligible enrollees by 2019. In a new report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, John Holahan and Irene Headen of the Urban Institute crunch the numbers and provide a state-by-state breakdown of what the Medicaid expansion means to states – and their budgets.

Boston Herald – Massachusetts health insurers are now fighting a two-front war against critics. While Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday was calling for potential caps on insurance-premium increases, a couple of bills now winding their way through the Legislature would let small businesses band together to buy health insurance in bulk for employees – an idea the insurance industry despises.

Maggie Mahar (The Health Care Blog) – While health care reformers argue about what it would take to “break the curve” of health care inflation, the state of Maryland has done it, at least when it comes to hospital spending.