Health and Human Services announced that the agency will alter the funding structure for ObamaCare “navigators.” These are the community outfits the Obama Administration paid to steer folks through the Affordable Care Act’s subsidies and penalties. Last year the Obama Administration handed out $62.5 million in grants for open enrollment for 2017, and the period arrives again in November.
One grantee took in $200,000 to enroll a grand total of one person. The top 10 most expensive navigators collected $2.77 million to sign up 314 people, and it would have been much cheaper to offer to pay all of their premiums for a year. All told, the navigators last year enrolled about 81,000 people, less than 1% of the total.
The Trump Administration will tie grants to performance.
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Major bipartisan accomplishments in federal policy feel like a rarity these days. But it was just over 20 years ago that the parties came together to pass significant, positive reforms to our nation’s cash assistance program for families in poverty. The 1996 welfare-reform law, passed by a Republican Congress and signed by President Bill Clinton, significantly strengthened work requirements in a new program, now known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). In the years following the law’s enactment, child-poverty rates dropped significantly and employment among poor mothers increased, while teen pregnancy and abortion rates continued to fall. Policies that encouraged work succeeded in achieving the intended, positive result: fewer Americans in poverty and more Americans providing for themselves.
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Despite the setbacks of the past eight months, including the inability of Republicans to agree on a single alternative to the ACA, it is still not too late for this Congress to pass health care reform legislation.
At this point in the Obama administration’s first term, the ACA hadn’t been passed – not even out of committee – and Democrats weren’t the least bit united either. That had, and that point in time, three separate bills – quite different from each other – going through different House committees, and three additional very different bills going through three different Senate committees. In addition, there were numerous other proposals introduced by various Democrats, which had been sidelined by their own leadership.
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The Department of Health and Human Services announced today it’s slashing the advertising and promotional budget for the Affordable Care Act for next year. It’s planning to spend $10 million to promote the law in the open enrollment period that starts in November — compared to the $100 million the Obama administration spent last year.
On a conference call with reporters, HHS officials argued that last year’s promotional spending — which was doubled from the year before — was ineffective because signups for new customers actually went down.
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A bipartisan group of governors is trying to jump-start efforts to strengthen private insurance under the Affordable Care Act, urging Congress to take prompt steps to stabilize marketplaces created by law while giving states more freedom from its rules.
In a blueprint issued Thursday, the eight governors ask House and Senate leaders of both parties to take several steps to reverse the rising rates and dwindling choices facing many of the 10 million Americans who buy health plans on their own through ACA marketplaces.
Specifically, the state leaders say Congress should devote money for at least two years toward “cost-sharing subsidies” that the 2010 health-care law promises to pay ACA insurers to offset deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses for lower-income customers.
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In an effort to promote medical breakthroughs, the 21st Century Cures Act tries to create an “information commons”: a government-regulated pool of data accessible to all health researchers, regardless of background, training or motive.
Although speeding research is a noble goal, there’s little evidence that patients are willing to sacrifice their privacy the way that the 21st Century Cures Act requires.
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