In the Essential Health Benefits, Actuarial Value, and Accreditation final rule, published in the Federal Register, HHS requires use of an AV Calculator by non-grandfathered health insurance plans offered in the individual and small group markets, both inside and outside of the Affordable Insurance Exchanges (Exchanges) for the purposes of determining levels of coverage. Section 1302(d)(2)(A) o...

In the Essential Health Benefits, Actuarial Value, and Accreditation Notice of Proposed Rulemaking published in the Federal Register, HHS proposes the use of an AV Calculator to determine levels of coverage for non-grandfathered health insurance plans offered in the individual and small group markets, both inside and outside of the Affordable Insurance Exchanges (Exchanges). Section 1302(d)(2)(...

Sickness Absence and Local Benefit Cultures In many countries, sickness absence financed by generous insurance benefits has become an important concern in the policy debate. It turns out that there are strong variations in absence behavior between local geographical areas, and it has been difficult to explain these variations by observable socioeconomic factors. In this paper we investigate whe...

McPheeters et al1 provided a systematic review of the evidence thatwas used by theUSPreventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) to make its recent recommendations on universal autism screening.2 The USPSTF concluded that there is currently insufficientevidenceto assess the benefits of universal screening for autismspectrumdisorder (ASD) inyoung children. Inparticular, theUSPSTFnoted that no studyha...

Health Insurance Benefit Mandates and the Firm-Size Distribution By 2010, the average US state had passed 37 health insurance benefit mandates (laws requiring health insurance plans to cover certain additional services). Previous work has shown that these mandates likely increase health insurance premiums, which in turn could make it more costly for firms to compensate employees. Using 1996–201...

Essential medicines are those that satisfy the priority healthcare needs of the population and are available at all times in adequate amounts, in the appropriate dosage forms with assured quality and at a price the individual and community can afford. Essential medicines are selected with due regard to disease prevalence, efficacy, safety and cost effectiveness. In most developing countries, th...