Washington Post Wonkbook 
As Obamacare starts, health insurers are just guessing

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We’re in a bit of a whack-a-mole period with the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges. Each week brings new data from a new state on the premiums insurers intend to charge on the exchanges. Some weeks bring revised data from old states. But it’s worth stepping back and keeping two things in mind.
The first is that all these numbers are simply guesses. Really. That’s it. California’s numbers are guesses. Maryland’s numbers are guesses. Oregon’s numbers are guesses. Vermont’s numbers are just guesses. Everyone is just guessing.
Insurers have to decide now how much they’ll charge next year. Once they’ve settled on a price and the exchanges open, that’s the end of it. They can change the price in the second year. But they can’t change it in, say, February of 2014.
Read More:http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/05/30/wonkbook-as-obamacare-starts-health-insurers-are-just-guessing

Modern Healthcare
ACA still missing key regulatory details

By Rich Daly
Posted: May 30, 2013 – 2:15 pm ET

Some key regulatory details remain unanswered in the final months before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act‘s major provisions launch.
Obama administration officials have insisted that they have issued all of the major regulations for the 2010 healthcare overhaul and are now focused on implementing the law’s central pillars—state health insurance exchanges and expanded Medicaid coverage—later this year. But health policy experts said they still expect important regulations implementing provisions of the law, plus a large amount of so-called subregulatory guidance.
Sam Batkins, director of regulatory policy at the conservative American Action Forum, counts 32 proposed rules that remain to be finalized, including final IRS rules on Medicare taxes and rules requiring providers to report and return Medicare overpayments within 60 days.
Other highly anticipated regulations still to come this year deal with various components of the health insurance marketplaces, experts say. Those new exchanges are expected to begin enrolling millions of private insurance subscribers in each state Oct. 1 and start providing coverage in January.
Read More: http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20130530/NEWS/305309968/#

Bloomberg News
UnitedHealth Spurns Obama Exchanges as Rules Stall Profit

By Alex Nussbaum – May 31, 2013 6:48 AM MT

UnitedHealth Group Inc. (UNH) will offer coverage in just a dozen of the U.S. health-care law’s new insurance exchanges, in the latest sign big insurers see little gain from quickly plunging into the new markets.
The country’s largest health insurer is taking a conservative approach to the online markets set to open in states Oct. 1, Chief Executive Officer Stephen Hemsley told investors yesterday at the Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. conference in New York. The company’s plans reflect its concern that the first wave of newly insured customers under the law may be the costliest, Hemsley said. UnitedHealth Group Inc. has trimmed its plans for selling to the uninsured under President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul, in the latest sign large insurers see little gain from quickly plunging into the new market.
Read More: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-30/unitedhealth-spurs-obama-exchanges-as-rules-stall-profit.html

Health Reform GPS
CMS State Resources: FAQ Medicaid Eligibility Determinations, Medicaid/Exchange Interactions, and §1115 Demonstrations that Use Enrollment Caps

By Sara Rosenbaum

Introduction
The interaction between Medicaid and Exchanges around eligibility determination issues represents one of the most important and complex aspects of the ACA. An estimated 28 million adults, along with 19 million children, can be expected to transition at least once annually between insurance affordability programs, as Medicaid and premium subsidies are termed under implementing CMS regulations. Collaboration between Medicaid agencies and Exchanges is essential in order to avert unnecessary delays in eligibility determinations and breaks in coverage that in turn can affect not only the affordability of care but access itself, given the link between coverage and health care access through plans’ provider networks.
On April 25, 2013, CMS issued FAQs that address issues related to Medicaid/Exchange alignment—including the availability of federal Medicaid funding for the information systems needed to support eligibility determinations
Read More: http://www.healthreformgps.org/resources/cms-state-resources-faq-medicaid-eligibility-determinations-medicaidexchange-interactions-and-%C2%A71115-demonstrations-that-use-enrollment-caps/

Life Health Pro
Federal exchanges attract about 120 health plan issuers

By Allison Bell
May 30, 2013

White House officials have given “interested parties” a peek at federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) exchange plan application results in a new memo.
The 19 states with “federally facilitated exchanges” (FFEs) have attracted applications from “over 120 issuers,” officials said in the memo.
Officials did not list the issuers or say, for example, whether they are counting multiple operating companies that are owned by the same holding company separately.
Applications from carriers that want to sell medical coverage, or “qualified health plans” (QHPs), through the federal exchanges were due April 30.
Read More: http://www.lifehealthpro.com/2013/05/30/federal-exchanges-attract-about-120-health-plan-is?eNL=51a7eb2e140ba08a1c000035&utm_source=HCRW&utm_medium=eNL&utm_campaign=LifeHealthPro_eNLs&_LID=139512916&t=individual-health&page=2

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