St@teside

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) celebrated its first birthday on March 23, 2011. It has been a busy year for state health policymakers, and SCI has been there every step of the way. We have facilitated meetings and webinars as well as developed a number of issue briefs and reports to help states sort through the key issues and difficult questions raised by the ACA.

In the flurry of the past year, a few of our valuable resources may have escaped your notice. Now is a good time to check out some of the SCI resources you might have missed, including:

Exchange Resources:

• Health Care Exchanges: Key Issues for State Implementation
• Health Benefit Exchanges: An Implementation Timeline for State Policymakers
• Health Insurance Exchanges: How Economic and Financial Modeling Can Support State Implementation
• Community-Based, Nonprofit Medicaid Plans and the New Health Insurance Exchanges: Opportunities and Challenges
• “Wisconsin’s Exchange Prototype Demonstration”

General Health Reform Resources:

• A comprehensive website with information on state-based health reform at www.statecoverage.org/health-reform-resources
• State Implementation of National Health Reform: Harnessing Federal Resources to Meet State Policy Goals
• An annual meeting focused on health reform and cost containment
• “State Funding Opportunities in Federal Reform” webinar
• An issue brief and webinar on the Basic Health Program
• An issue brief that outlines the impact of the ACA on various demographic groups by state and the expected financial impact of the legislation

Quality and Cost Containment Resources:

• The Web-based resources from AcademyHealth’s recent State Quality Improvement Institute, which was designed to help promote health system reform in eight states, can be found here;
• A workshop and issue brief on all-payer claims databases
• Value-Based Purchasing and Consumer Engagement Strategies in State Employee Health Plans: A Purchaser Guide.