Fall 2013 - 63445 - PA680PA - Policy Research Project

Collaborating with Elizabeth Colvin of Foundation Communities
This Policy Research Project will have two interrelated parts. First we will be providing the information and analysis on Texas for a state by state study of Affordable Care Act implementation with an initial focus on the development and availability of the state level exchange and enrollment readiness in October of 2013 and then the initial workings of the exchange[s] from January through March of 2014. This project is being directed and coordinated by Richard Nathan under the aegis of the Nelson Rockefeller Institute of Government at SUNY Albany and the Fels Institute of Government at the University of Pennsylvania. The study focuses on the following three issues: (1) Who governs (agencies, offices, program leaders); (2) The interagency and federal-state relationships that develop; and (3) State-level operations of the principal coverage expanding policies adopted in the new law.< /p>
Some of the issues we will describe and document in the post-October report will be Exchange Structure and Strategy, Exchange Leadership, Personnel (Staffing), Enrollment Readiness, Navigational Assistance, Outreach/Sign-Up/ Educational Activities, Interagency Relations, Intergovernmental Relations, Public-Private Relationships, Program Articulation, and Qualified Health Plan Availability. We anticipate that the report on the first three months of operation will include a number of other issues as well.
The second part of the PRP involves facilitating and analyzing enrollment of individuals into exchanges in collaboration with Foundation Communities, an Austin non-profit that focuses on housing and other support services for low income people. Foundation Communities will be building on their successful tax assistance initiative and seek to enroll 5000 individuals into insurance between October and March. It is anticipated that the members of the PRP will complete training to become certified navigators eligible to enroll persons under the ACA and in fact will spend a reasonable amount of time doing that at a Foundation Communities center. In addition to volunteering as navigators it is anticipated that some of the students will develop and administer a questionnaire to a sample of enrollees and potential enrollees to evaluate their motivations in coming to the center[s] as well as the basis for enrolling or not and to improve the services provided by Foundation Communities.