Employees contribute far below the maximum amount allowed to an individual-coverage or family-coverage health savings account (HSA), a sign consumers aren’t taking full advantage of the account’s tax benefits, according to a new analysis of consumer records.
Managing health costs, particularly for consumers in or approaching retirement, is considered a growth area for insurance agents and advisors doing comprehensive financial planning. HSAs are primed to play a key role.
More than 20 million Americans have access to health plans with HSAs, according to the trade association America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). Congress recently passed bipartisan legislation expanding the use and contribution limits for HSAs.
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During the first year of Obamacare’s implementation, the individual insurance market became less healthy while the uninsured and Medicaid populations became healthier, according to a new analysis.
A Health Affairs data analysis released Wednesday underscores the often stated observation that the Affordable Care Act has brought sicker, more expensive enrollees into the individual marketplace while healthier people have tended to resist enrollment.
The analysis uses information in the National Health Interview Survey, conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics. It was conducted by officials from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, the Congressional Budget Office, and Social and Scientific Systems.
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House Republicans on Wednesday released their healthcare spending bill for fiscal 2017, boosting funding to fight opioid abuse and the Zika virus while taking aim at ObamaCare and abortion.
Evergreen Health Cooperative must pay $24.2 million to its biggest competitor because of an Affordable Care Act program that aims to level the playing field for insurers taking on riskier customers from state health insurance exchanges.
Evergreen, an innovative insurer established under the new law by former Baltimore Health Commissioner Peter Beilenson, is not alone in having to pay for its healthier clients. Kaiser Permanente of the Mid-Atlantic States owes $14.7 million and Aetna will shell out $11.8 million.
An organization representing state health insurance co-ops criticized the Affordable Care Act’s risk adjustment formula as a failure causing difficulties for the nonprofit insurers created under the law.
The announcement from the National Alliance of State Health Co-Ops came a day after HealthyCT, the Connecticut co-op, was put under an order of suspension, signaling the co-op would start taking steps to shut down. Kelly Crowe, the group’s CEO, said the case was not a “one-off example.”
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The Obama administration suffered a setback in its efforts to strengthen the individual insurance market when a federal appeals court last week struck down an HHS rule barring the sale of certain limited-benefit plans as stand-alone products.
In Central United Life v. Burwell, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned a 2014 HHS rule restricting the sale of fixed-indemnity insurance plans that pay policyholders fixed dollar amounts to cover medical services regardless of how much the provider bills. These plans, which are cheaper to buy than comprehensive plans but exclude pre-existing conditions, do not comply with Affordable Care Act provisions on minimum essential benefits or guaranteed issue.
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The Obama administration knowingly spent billions in health care dollars without proper congressional authority and went to “great lengths” to impede congressional scrutiny of the money, Republicans on two major House committees said in a report that will be made public on Thursday.
An extensive investigation by the Ways and Means and the Energy and Commerce Committees concluded that the administration plowed ahead with funding for a consumer cost-reduction program that was central to the new health insurance law even though Congress did not provide money for it.
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The Obama administration has been illegally funding Obamacare “Cost Sharing Reduction” (CSR) payments for years over the objections of IRS officials, according to a report released today by the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
Key findings:
-The administration initially submitted a CSR appropriations request for Fiscal Year 2014, but later withdrew it and began making payments illegally.
-CSR payments were created as one way to artificially hide the true costs of Obamacare through a web of government spending programs.
-After officials from the Obama Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) withdrew the CSR appropriations request, the administration begun illegally shifting funds from a separate appropriation.
-IRS officials expressed concern that this method of funding CSR payments was illegal so were briefed on the memorandum.
-Following this meeting, IRS officials continued to have concerns that the CSR payments violated federal law and raised concerns with IRS Chief John Koskinen.
-Shortly thereafter, DoJ and Treasury officials officially approved the decision to use an unrelated appropriation to make CSR payments.
A nearly $150 million bill from the federal government has taxpayer-funded Obamacare plans angry, with some experts wondering if more co-ops could shut down in the coming months.
When the Obama administration last week announced payments under the risk adjustment program for the 2015 benefit year, the news wasn’t good for the 10 Obamacare consumer oriented and operated plans, or co-ops, that remain out of the 23 original plans, which owe more than $150 million to the government.
On Tuesday, the payments claimed one victim, as Connecticut’s insurance regulator shut down the HealthyCT co-op after it learned it owed $13.4 million in risk adjustment payments.
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