Affordable Care Act Website of the Week: February 10-14, 2014

Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. Affordable Care Act Website of the Week: February 10-14, 2014 The Kaiser Family Foundation is a non-profit foundation focusing on the major health care issues facing the United States. Kaiser develops and runs its own research, journalism, and communications programs and serves as a non-partisan source of facts, information, analysis, and journalism for policymakers, the media, the health care community, and the public. The Kaiser Family Foundation Health Reform Website has extensive information about health reform and about implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The main page of the website includes these links: A Frequently Asked Questions section entitled Get answers to common questions about health reform. An issues brief entitled Analyzing the Impact of State Medicaid Expansion Decisions that highlights five key ways that state decisions will shape the outcome of the Medicaid expansion. A Health Insurance Subsidy Calculator which illustrates health insurance premiums and subsidies for people purchasing insurance on their own in the new health insurance exchanges (Marketplaces) created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). An issues brief entitled Consumer Assistance in Health Reform, which outlines the need for hands-on consumer assistance, the resources available under the ACA to fill this need, and the implementation issues that may impact the effectiveness of consumer assistance efforts. The website front page includes an interactive map with regularly updated state-by-state information on Health Insurance Exchanges (Marketplaces), which will provide information on and access to affordable commercial insurance options for people unable to access Medicaid. If an applicant appears to qualify for Medicaid or CHIP coverage, the same application via the marketplace exchange will alert both the individual applicant and the state Medicaid Agency so that Medicaid enrollment can be initiated. The Kaiser Family Foundation Medicaid webpage offers key information on Medicaid outreach and enrollment strategies and the latest information about state Medicaid expansion decisions. A companion website provides extensive, detailed information and data about each state's Medicaid and CHIP programs. For more information, please visit HUD's OneCPD Affordable Care Act website Reminder: Every state has a Health Insurance Marketplace that functions as a portal to health coverage.   Some states have elected to operate their own Marketplace, others to be served by a Marketplace operated by the federal government, and still others to share some responsibilities in partnership with the federal Marketplace.   The Marketplaces are intended to facilitate access to affordable healthcare coverage for people with incomes below 400% of the federal poverty level (FPL) in every state (even in those that have elected not to expand Medicaid coverage to people with incomes below 138% of the FPL).   In addition, in all states people who are currently eligible for the legacy Medicaid program can be identified and referred for Medicaid enrollment by the Marketplace, without regard to the states' decisions about Medicaid coverage expansion.   The federal government is funding specialized outreach and enrollment assistance in every state. *Because of possible new insurance options, and the increase in access to enrollment for many clients, it is essential that housing and services providers use the information available on websites such as http://www.enrollamerica.org to familiarize themselves with the Health Marketplace options in their state, and develop a plan to assist their constituents to obtain Medicaid or affordable health insurance coverage.