The Trump administration last week issued a final rule reversing federal limits on short-term health coverage, allowing such plans to become a long-term alternative to individual-market coverage. Starting in October, insurers will be allowed to sell short-term plans for just under 12 months and can renew them for up to 36 months. The rule does not preempt states from imposing shorter limits on these plans, or banning them entirely, however.

On To the Point, experts at Georgetown University's Center on Health Insurance Reforms surveyed insurance departments in the 17 states that run their own marketplaces to understand how markets for short-term plans — which are not required to comply with the Affordable Care Act's consumer protections — are working on the eve of this policy shift. The authors found most states have little information about the status of these markets.

Use our new map to explore actions taken by states that will affect their residents’ access to adequate health coverage, including steps to promote competition in the ACA marketplaces, provide reinsurance to participating carriers, and more. 

The U.S. House of Representatives voted recently to allow more people to open health savings accounts (HSAs). Sherry Glied of New York University and Dahlia Remler of Baruch College explain why these new tax breaks, which will cost more than $40 billion over 10 years, would make our health care system both less equitable and more costly.

Over the past several decades, consolidation among health care providers and insurers has increased their market power and driven up health care prices and premiums. In a new study, Brent D. Fulton, Daniel R. Arnold, and Richard M. Scheffler of the U.C. Berkeley School of Public Health look at health care provider and insurance market concentration for each metropolitan statistical area. For providers, the vast majority of these areas were at the concentrated end of the spectrum; for insurers, nearly all fell into the middle.

Most accountable care organizations have formed preferred networks of skilled nursing facilities to improve care coordination, reduce unnecessary hospital readmissions, and shorten hospitalizations, according to a new Commonwealth Fund–supported study (Medical Care Research and Review, July 2, 2018) by Gregory Kennedy of the Dartmouth Institute and colleagues.

Large physician practices spend more per person and their patients are readmitted to the hospital at a higher rate than the smallest practices, find Commonwealth Fund–supported researchers led by Lawrence P. Casalino, M.D., of Weill Cornell Medical College. The study, published in Health Services Research, focused on Medicare patients with high health care needs. Despite spending more, however, large medical practices don’t necessarily deliver higher-quality care than small ones.

The Commonwealth Fund is recruiting for a new program officer in its New York City office to lead our vulnerable populations grant portfolio. The new position will support the Commonwealth Fund's Health Care Delivery System Reform program and will feature responsibility for managing current grants, developing new grants, refining the portfolio's strategy, and ensuring the continued success of the Fund's minority health leadership and policy fellowships. The job description can be found here.