Rx NY

This report offers a way to make health care more accessible and affordable for all New Yorkers without expanding Medicaid. Instead, it offers market-driven reforms to make private insurance more affordable and accessible by: Restoring flexibility to New York's health-insurance regulations to permit more innovative and diverse health-plan offerings. Creating a guaranteed-access, high-risk pool for high-cost individuals who cannot obtain coverage through their employers and may not be "insurable" in the newly competitive individual insurance market. Allowing low-cost, temporary health-insurance plans. Requiring small businesses to allow employees to pay their share of premiums with pretax income, through payroll deductions. Basing Medicaid income eligibility on fixed income limits rather than a percentage of the federal poverty limits, which don't take account of regional cost-of-living differences. Reaching out to noncitizens by targeting private insurance coverage options to them. Making Health Savings Account-eligible plans available in the individual-insurance market.