One of the core features of the Affordable Care Act is the creation of an Essential Health Benefits package.  This package of benefits will constitute a minimum set of benefits that plans offered through insurance exchanges must cover. The Institute of Medicine was asked by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to recommend a process to help HHS to define the benefits that should be included in the essential health benefits and a process to update the benefits to take into account advances in science, gaps in access, and the impact of any benefit changes on cost. In the report released by the IOM, the panel focused on the following key issues: setting a balance between comprehensiveness and affordability; defining what typical should mean for typical employer and benefits; determining whether state mandates should be automatically included; considering how specific HHS guidance should be when defining the essential health benefits package and whether state to state variation might be allowable; and developing criteria and methods that address calls for use of evidence, protection of patients, innovation, and fair process. To read the IOM report, click here.

The Columbus Dispatch reports that Ohio Supreme Court has until Monday to make a decision on whether or not Issue 3, the amendment targeted at repealing the federal health care reform law in Ohio, will appear on the fall ballot.  Supporters of the federal health law challenged the validity of more than 69,000 petition signatures and asked the Ohio Supreme Court to take the issue off of the ballot.  If the Ohio Supreme Court invalidates the signatures, they may grant the supporters of the ballot proposal time to file additional signatures.  To read the Dispatch article, click here.