“1.) AEI’s Joseph Antos and James Capretta present “A health reform framework: Breaking out of the Medicaid model.” Here’s a peek:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that about one-third of the additional insurance coverage expected to occur because of the law will come from expansion of the existing, unreformed Medicaid program. The rest of the coverage expansion will come from enrolling millions of people into subsidized insurance offerings on the ACA exchanges — offerings that have strong similarities to Medicaid insurance. Unfortunately, ample evidence demonstrates that this kind of insurance model leaves the poor and lower-income households with inadequate access to health care….
2.) “Some still lack coverage under health law,” notes The Wall Street Journal:
Months after the sign-up deadline, thousands of Americans who purchased health insurance through the Affordable Care Act still don’t have coverage due to problems in enrollment systems. In states including California, Nevada and Massachusetts, which are running their own online insurance exchanges, some consumers picked a private health plan and paid their premiums only to learn recently that they aren’t insured.
3.) “Brace for the next round of Obamacare rate shock,” comments Philip Klein at The Washington Examiner:
As insurance companies begin to propose premiums for 2015, it’s time for Americans to brace themselves for the next round of rate shock in the wake of President Obama’s health care law. There are several ways in which Obamacare drives up the cost of health insurance. The primary way is that it requires insurance plans to offer a certain raft of benefits specified by the government and to cover everybody who applies, regardless of pre-existing conditions. It then limits the amount that insurers can charge older and sicker patients relative to younger and healthier patients, driving the costs up for the latter group.
4.) “Automatic Obamacare enrollment is anti-patient,” according to Diana Furchtgott-Roth:
With a new Avalere study showing that many Obamacare participants will face premium increases in the fall, the administration’s proposed rule that would automatically reenroll Americans in their existing federal health exchange plan is likely to leave many people paying higher premiums than necessary. Plus, Uncle Sam will be unable to verify correct amounts of health insurance premium subsidies. America is not yet ready for auto enrollment in Obamacare.
“After being without health insurance for two years, Miranda Childe of Hallandale Beach found a plan she could afford with financial aid from the government using the Affordable Care Act’s exchange.
Childe, 60, bought an HMO plan from Humana, one of the nation’s largest health insurance companies, and received a membership card in time for her coverage to kick in on May 1st.
But instead of being able to pick a primary care physician to coordinate her healthcare, Childe says she repeatedly ran into closed doors from South Florida doctors who are listed in her plan’s provider network but refused to see patients who bought their coverage on the ACA exchange.
“I just felt that I wasn’t being treated like a first-class citizen,’’ said Childe, who eventually found a doctor with the help of a Humana counselor. “Nobody, I don’t care what kind of degrees they have, should ever be treated that way.’’
Nearly one million Floridians enrolled in a private health plan through the ACA exchange but some, like Childe, are finding that some physicians refuse to honor their coverage — even when the doctors are included in the plan’s provider network.”
“When the District launched its federally mandated health insurance exchange last fall, officials went to great lengths to woo professional insurance brokers — launching a special broker web portal, establishing a “concierge” hotline just for brokers and holding broker-only training classes.
Despite those efforts, many brokers have yet to be paid for the policies they’ve sold through the exchange, known as D.C. Health Link — generating frustration among professionals who say their patience in navigating the changes wrought by the Affordable Care Act has not been rewarded.
“I’ve been very supportive, I put a lot of work into it, and I’ve gotten nothing,” said Steve Nearman, a Virginia-based broker who says he has helped nearly 100 city residents find and buy insurance through the exchange and is owed thousands of dollars in commissions.”
“ObamaCare hurts businesses. That’s the result of an exhaustive study polling small to medium-sized businesses.
The controversial government health-care reform increases company and employee costs and sometimes stops companies from hiring as well, participants told the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans in its new study.
“More than half of single employers believe the Affordable Care Act has had a negative effect on their company,” according to the report.
The survey, which polled some employers and their health-care pros, found that the majority of respondents, 54 percent, thought the effect of the ACA on their firms had been “negative” or “very negative.”
The same respondents also expected that the negative effects from ACA would increase to 66 percent in the near future as the program unfolds.”
“WASHINGTON — More than half of privately insured women are getting free birth control under President Barack Obama’s health law, a major coverage shift that’s likely to advance.
This week the Supreme Court allowed some employers with religious scruples to opt out, but most companies appear to be going in the opposite direction.
Recent data from the IMS Institute document a sharp change during 2013. The share of privately insured women who got their birth control pills without a copayment jumped to 56 percent, from 14 percent in 2012. The law’s requirement that most health plans cover birth control as prevention, at no additional cost to women, took full effect in 2013.”
“By a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court has ruled that family-owned, closely held corporations do not have to comply with the health law’s contraception coverage requirements if they violate the owner’s religious views. Legal analyst Stuart Taylor Jr. joins us now to discuss the decision. Thanks for being with us.
STUART TAYLOR: Nice to be with you.
MARY AGNES CAREY: Why did the court rule this way?
STUART TAYLOR: Well, the court held that under an act of Congress passed in 1993, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the right is conferred on all religious groups, including, the court said in this case for the first time, for-profit corporations as well as churches and, say, nonprofit religious groups — they all get broad protection of their religious freedoms.”
In the four years since passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), we have heard a wide range of speculative predictions about how private employers sponsoring health coverage would respond. More recent evidence from one of the oldest and largest annual surveys of employer plans, by human resources consulting firm Mercer, provides stronger indications that employer sponsors are neither heading for the exit doors nor sitting by passively as broader implementation of Obamacare unfolds.
“The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has served as a catalyst to an ongoing national debate on the cost of health care in the United States. An important aspect of this question is the cost impact of the new law on the employer community. Employers spend $578.6 billion annually in providing health coverage for 170.9 million employees, retirees, and dependents. If the law leads to significant cost increases for them, this would affect the behavior of employers, which could in turn affect how—and even whether—they provide health care for their employees.”
“Liberals keep dismissing challenges to ObamaCare, political and legal, so it’s no surprise they mostly ignored last week’s oral argument at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that could send another case to the Supreme Court. Coming in the week the White House wheeled out its 38th rewrite of the law, Halbig v. Sebelius is even more important for the contours of executive power and the rule of law.”
“The Obama administration’s decision to let some consumers enroll in health plans beyond Monday’s deadline sparked concern among insurers and prompted fresh attacks from opponents of the health law.
A surge of consumers is expected to hit HealthCare.gov before Monday’s deadline to sign up for insurance and avoid a penalty under the Affordable Care Act. In the past, heavy traffic has stalled the federal site.”