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Health Plan Switching: A Case Study--Implications for Private- and Public-Health-Insurance Exchanges and Increased Health Plan Choice

When workers are offered more than one health plan, who switches their plans, and does it lead to adverse selection, causing healthy workers to leave certain health plans saddled with only high-cost sick workers? Evidence suggests it’s mostly younger workers or higher-income workers without family coverage who switch?which does indeed raise the risk of adverse selection, according to a new analysis by EBRI. EBRI Issue Brief Mar 23, 2017 24 pages

The 2017 Retirement Confidence Survey: Many Workers Lack Retirement Confidence and Feel Stressed About Retirement Preparations

Many American workers today are feeling stressed about retirement and are not taking steps to prepare for it. And those feeling stressed have lower levels of retirement confidence and are less likely to feel financially secure, according to the 2017 Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) by EBRI and Greenwald & Associates. EBRI Issue Brief Mar 21, 2017 32 pages

Retirement Policy Directions in 2017 and Beyond

With a new Congress and a new president in Washington, how are U.S. retirement policies likely to change? Possibly quite radically, and for two main reasons: First, because of the new majority’s plans to overhaul the entire U.S. tax structure and federal budget in ways that could fundamentally change how private-sector retirement plans are treated in the tax code. And second, because of the drive to simplify and lower income tax rates, tax-favored retirement provisions in the tax code are vulnerable. This article summarizes discussion of these issues at EBRI’s 79th policy forum in Washington last December. Press release. EBRI Notes Feb. 27, 2017 8 pages

Health Experts Consider a Post-ACA World

Under President Trump, how, exactly, is the Affordable Care Act (ACA) likely to change, and how will this fundamental policy shift affect the U.S. health care and health insurance systems? The short answer, as the new administration was taking shape: Nobody knows. But whether it’s a “repeal and replace,” as many congressional Republicans have advocated ever since the law was enacted in 2010, or “repeal and delay” or “partial repeal” or “repair” (as some are now suggesting) or just “repeal,” it seems certain that change is on the way. This article summarizes discussion of these issues by a panel of experts at EBRI’s 79th policy forum held in Washington last December, and attended by more than a hundred people. Press release. EBRI Notes Feb 23, 2017 12 pages

Narrow Provider Networks for Employer Plans

So-called “narrow provider networks,” which limit covered health providers in health plans, do not appear to be crossing over rapidly from the Affordable Care Act’s health exchanges into employment-based health plans, according to a new analysis by EBRI and Mark A. Hall, J.D., Wake Forest University, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) Changes in Health Care Financing & Organization (HCFO) Initiative. EBRI Issue Brief Dec 14, 2016 20 pages