Allen Steinberg : Perspectives

Employee benefit plans—especially retirement and health care—have become an increasingly important part of the employment relationship. For employers, these plans represent an important part of the total compensation package, a tool for retention and recruitment, and a growing financial and compliance burden. For employees, these plans represent a key part of their overall financial security and wellbeing, a financial burden, and a source of complexity and frustration. In effect, it’s complicated. Our firm is dedicated to helping employers manage these complexities and focus on the important things.

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Allen Steinberg

07.03.2017 03.20 CST

Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are promoted as a better way to pay for health care. However, there are limitations to what HSAs can really do.

401(k) Plans and Health Savings Accounts: A Questionable Comparison

Can you compare HSAs with 401(k) plans? In some ways they look alike, but...

affordability consumerism HSAs

Increased reliance on HSAs is going to be a key element of any TrumpRyanCare bill. Although it may be tempting to compare Health Savings Accounts and 401(k) plans, such comparisons underestimate the challenges of increasing individuals’ reliance on HSAs to finance health care.

Allen Steinberg

05.03.2017 03.25 CST

People on Medicare should pay attention to the ongoing debate over a TrumpRyanCare proposal - your prescription drug costs could be affected.

ACA Repeal and Medicare Beneficiaries

People who have prescription drug coverage under Medicare may, once again, fall into the "donut hole" if Obamacare is repealed.

Affordable Care Act Donut hole Medicare Obamacare repeal

Efforts to replace and repeal the Affordable Care Act will have the greatest effect on those under 65 - but may also have a significant impact of people covered by Medicare. Specifically, if the AC is repealed your cost of prescription drugs may go up. Here how Medicare beneficiaries may be impacted by an ACA repeal.

Allen Steinberg

02.03.2017 02.35 CST

Those promoting Trump/RyanCare will focus their message on accessibility rather than affordability. To the extent they discuss affordability, they will focus on the aspirational goal of making health care more affordable in the long term.

Access to Healthcare Under TrumpRyanCare

Those who rely on financial support under ACA are likely to find themselves entering new terrain.

access affordable Affordable Care Act repeal

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) sought to provide increased access to health insurance with two different sets of provisions – those impacting “market” access (“If I apply for a policy, can I get one?”) and others focused on “financial” access (“Can I afford a policy?”). This blog post will describe how Trump/RyanCare is likely to treat the market access provisions of ACA differently than the financial access provisions - and how different groups will be affected.

Allen Steinberg

23.02.2017 04.49 CST

In the post-ACA world carriers will be given more latitude to identify who they are willing to cover and how they will underwrite and price those coverages.

After Obamacare—What’s Next for Insurance Companies?

The future is full of possibilities for insurance companies.

Affordable Care Act government insurance companies regulation repeal

I have described the likelihood that, in a post-ACA world, the federal government will step back and the states will have more flexibility and responsibility. The next key player in this equation is the insurance industry.

Allen Steinberg

23.02.2017 04.10 CST

The largest increases in Health Care Insurance changes involve the role/autonomy that will go to individual states and insurance companies.

After Obamacare—What’s Next for the States?

What’s Next for the States? It's foggy out here.

Affordable Care Act government regulation repeal states

In my previous post I discussed how the federal role in U.S. healthcare markets is likely to shrink in a post-ACA environment. So, who picks up the slack? It is likely that the largest increases in role/autonomy will go to individual states and insurance companies. This blog post focuses on a potential increase in states’ roles; my next post discusses increased control that may flow to insurance companies. Here’s how this may play out: