When pressed during last Thursday night’s campaign debate in Houston for details of his proposed plans for replacing Obamacare after it is repealed, presidential candidate Donald Trump (?-NY) once again sputtered out something about eliminating “those lines” that states draw in regulating health insurance. What that exactly means involves some Trump-Land-to- Policy-World translation, and a little primer on what’s usually understand and misunderstood in this area of health policy.
Trump appears to be borrowing some of the language behind a traditional conservative Republican health reform proposal, which involves facilitating competition in health coverage through the sale and purchase of insurance products across states. It’s sometimes referred to as interstate competition or competitive federalism, or even just “consumer choice.”
Cato’s Michael Cannon has doubled down in his latest Forbes column on his outrageous claim that,“Yes, Marco Rubio’s Obamacare Replacement Plan — Tax Credits — Is An Individual Mandate.”
Sen. Rubio’s health policy plan provides an advanceable, refundable tax credit that can be used to purchase insurance. This idea is a centerpiece of free-market health policy. It would create fairness by equalizing the tax treatment of health insurance between those currently receiving employer-based health insurance and those who are shut out of this market. It would allow portability of coverage, make costs more transparent, and turn down the fires on the inflation-generating tax exclusion for job-based health insurance.
Cannon explains the Rubio tax credit this way: “If you purchase a government-approved health plan, you could save, for example, $2,000 on your taxes. If you don’t, you pay that $2,000 to the government. That is exactly how Obamacare’s individual mandate works.”
In a major win for the industry, health insurers will not be forced to have minimum quantitative standards when designing their networks of hospitals and doctors for 2017, nor will they have to offer standardized options for health plans.
The CMS released a sweeping final rule (PDF) Monday afternoon that solidifies the Affordable Care Act’s coverage policies for 2017. The agency proposed tight network adequacy provisions and standardized health plan options in late November, which fueled antipathy from the health insurance industry.
Monday’s rule relaxes those aggressive proposals, a move that likely will raise the ire of consumer groups that have pushed for stronger insurance protections for patients. It does, however, include some victories for transparency advocates. The federal government, for example, will now have to publish all changes to premium rates, not just increases that are subject to review.
Co-ops created under ObamaCare reported net assets despite losing millions because they used an accounting trick approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Tax filings for 18 co-ops, including nine that collapsed in 2015, also revealed that co-op CEOs were paid handsomely before many had to shut down.
In July 2015, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services amended its agreement with co-ops, allowing them to list $2.4 billion in loans they received from taxpayers as assets.