ASPE Issue Brief

Standardized plans are a policy option that can simplify Marketplace consumer comparison shopping and bring more value to consumers by offering the same deductibles and cost-sharing across plans. This report provides an overview of the evidence to date on how standardized plans can potentially benefit consumers, improve health equity, and enhance plan competition.

This report provides an overview of the characteristics of the immigrant population in the United States, their health status and barriers to care, recent trends in health insurance coverage, their access to Federal health programs, and how they have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. It also offers possible policy approaches to improve health care equity for this diverse population.

The Child and Caregiver Outcomes Using Linked Data project provides technical assistance to states to develop state-specific datasets linking the Medicaid administrative claims of parents with the records of their children from the child welfare system. The data will be combined into a multi-state, de-identified data sets for secondary data analysis.

The postpartum period is increasingly recognized as a target for policy intervention to improve maternal health. The American Rescue Plan Act included an option for states to offer 12 months of postpartum Medicaid eligibility, a significant extension from the current requirement of 60 days.

Participation in the social safety net varies widely across programs—from 15 percent among eligibles for subsidized child care (CCDF) to over 75 percent for Medicaid/CHIP and EITC.  Participation differs by race and ethnicity, yet patterns are not consistent. In general rates differ more across programs than between race-ethnic groups.

On January 1, 2022, the surprise billing provisions of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 - commonly referred to as the No Surprises Act - go into effect. Surprise billing occurs when a privately insured individual receives an unexpected bill either in an emergency situation or when a service in an in-network facility is provided by an out-of-network provider.

This playbook aims to synthesize lessons learned and recommendations from existing resources, emergency management protocols, and interviews with federal program staff about responding to emergencies and disasters.

Federal surveys relied on by researchers and policymakers for estimates of the uninsured population have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, potentially influencing the accuracy of their estimates. This report analyzes evidence from a variety of data sources, including surveys and administrative data, which collectively indicate that the number of uninsured people in the U.S.

From 1999 through 2019, there were more than 840,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States. The crisis has continually evolved and escalated, including during the COVID-19 pandemic, when an estimated 93,000 persons lost their lives to drug overdose in 2020--approximately a 30% increase over the year prior.

Based on interviews with 12 individuals with experience designing, providing, and receiving training and technical assistance (TA), this brief outlines six elements necessary for creating engaging training and TA, summarizes how designers and providers might measure recipients’ engagement, and presents concrete strategies for providers to make training and TA engaging.