This op-ed for The Hill is part of an ongoing collaboration with George Kalogeropoulos, CEO of HealthSherpa, on strategic health care topics, especially those pertaining to the individual, ACA-subsidized health insurance market and part-time workforces. Another opportunity to stabilize the individual market came and went last month, with the passage of the omnibus spending bill for 2018. President … Continue Reading
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Why Employers Should Guide Non-Benefits-Eligible Employees to Public Sources of Health Coverage
This article was originally published with co-author George Kalogeropoulos, CEO of HealthSherpa, on LinkedIn. If ever there was a topic and industry that doesn’t benefit from binary thinking, it’s the U.S. healthcare system. Far too often, we find ourselves treating multifaceted issues as if there are only two available paths: employer vs. government; eligible vs. … Continue Reading
The Four C’s that Will Drive Success (or Failure) for the Amazon/Berkshire-Hathaway/JPMorganChase Partnership
Has it been surprising how much we’ve all talked about, and wanted to talk more about, the partnership between Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorganChase (ABJ for short) on healthcare? In a way, yes. Such wonkishness usually doesn’t capture the public interest with such staying power. Yet, when you have two guys who’ve been Richest Person … Continue Reading
Imagining a Post-Employer-Mandate (and Coverage) World
After a year of false starts on “repeal-and-replace,” rarely a day passes now that some action isn’t taken on healthcare reform. After the Individual Mandate zero-out surprisingly made it into tax reform at year-end, we’re already on to considering association health plans and work requirements for Medicaid. Yet, the largest single segment of health insurance coverage in the U.S. — … Continue Reading
ATTN: Employees! Should you get (and use) telemedicine?
Confession: I fired my primary care provider a few years ago. She was really nice and seemed to be a great doctor. In fact, she had been named to multiple lists of the best doctors in the city. But I never got out of her office without spending 45 minutes or more in the waiting … Continue Reading
ATTN: Employees! Here are 5 Tips for Picking the Right Benefits During Open Enrollment
Yo! Are you one of the 150 million Americans who gets health benefits from your employer, and one of the much more than that who gets any kind of benefit from your employer? Then listen up! We’re in the middle of what thousands of benefits administrators know as “open enrollment season,” AKA “OE.” It’s like … Continue Reading
The Trump/My Little Pony Connection: Interpreting the President’s Executive Order on the ACA
My 6-year-old daughter is a My Little Pony fanatic, which means I am also a fanatic. Well, a fan. I haven’t gone full-on Brony yet but there’s still time. For the uninitiated, the subtitle of My Little Pony is “friendship is magic” and every episode revolves around the pony friends solving problems through teamwork, critical thinking and perseverance — valuable lessons … Continue Reading
How Consumer-Driven Digital Enrollment Has Transformed Health Care Benefits
On Friday, January 20, the 45th President of the United States of America was sworn into office. That same day, he made the opening move in his campaign promise to repeal Obamacare. President Trump’s Executive Order on the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was largely symbolic, but it sent the intended message that he’s serious about ACA … Continue Reading
How employers want benefit offerings to evolve after the election
This article was originally published on Employee Benefit Adviser. As a student of political science, the 2016 election has been like being a meteorologist tracking a hurricane. There has been no shortage of debates, controversies, tests of democracy and Constitutional crises that are both exciting and exhausting. As a citizen, it’s mostly just been exhausting. … Continue Reading
Data and Transparency Aid in Shift to Outcome-Based Health Care
I was recently asked to join a panel on the current state of private exchanges and how consumer-oriented enrollment experiences can drive greater engagement with benefits throughout the year. Represented were a policy expert, a benefits advocate for some of the nation’s leading employers, an actuary and a technology nerd (me). As typically happens when … Continue Reading