Another year, another reason for AHIP Institute attendees to hold their collective breath.
Last year, the thousands of insurance company executives and vendors flocking to the America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) annual meeting in Salt Lake City were waiting for the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).
Today, the thousands of people braving strong winds, high airfares and punitive bag fees to get to the 2013 annual meeting, in Las Vegas, know that the court has brushed aside the most obvious legal challenge to PPACA implementation — a question about whether Congress had the constitutional authority to impose a fine, or tax, on individual taxpayers who fail to own a minimum amount of health insurance.
The 2013 meeting is set to start Wednesday.
For insurance company executives, the driving question now is, “How will we connect with the PPACA exchanges by Oct. 1 and meet PPACA goals for improving the quality of care and reducing the cost, given that PPACA is supposed to slash spending on administration, and no one can actually tell us much about how exactly PPACA will work?”
Companies hawking hardware, software, data analysis tools and consulting services aimed at harried insurance company PPACA implementers are dominating the top levels of the 2013 meeting sponsors, exhibitors, and providers of speakers.