“Consumers may soon find a surprise in their mailbox: a notice that their health plan is being canceled.
Last year, many consumers who thought their health plans would be canceled because they didn’t meet the standards of the health law got a reprieve. Following stinging criticism for appearing to renege on a promise that people who liked their existing plans could keep them, President Barack Obama backed off plans to require all individual and small group plans that had not been in place before the health law to meet new standards starting in 2014. The administration initially announced a transitional policy that, with state approval, would allow insurers to renew plans that didn’t comply with coverage or cost standards starting in December 2013 and continue doing so until October 2014. Then in March, the administration said it would extend the transitional policy for two more years, meaning that some people will be able to hang onto their non-compliant plans through 2017.”
“Well, who could have seen this coming? Thankfully, at this point, the reports say there has been no release of personal information. I can’t say I’m terribly heartened:”
“Voters are more skeptical than ever that Obamacare can be fixed any time soon but remain almost evenly divided on the impact the health care law will have on their voting decisions this November.
Thirty-five percent (35%) of Likely U.S. Voters say they are more likely to vote for a member of Congress who supports the law, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Slightly more (38%) say they are less likely to vote for an Obamacare supporter. Nineteen percent (19%) say a Congress member’s position on the law will have no impact on their voting decision. (To see survey question wording, click here.) ”
“With the second open enrollment period of the health insurance marketplaces approaching, this analysis provides an initial look at premium changes for marketplace plans for individuals in 15 states and the District of Columbia that have publicly released comprehensive data on rates or rate filings for all insurers.
The analysis examines premium changes for the lowest-cost bronze plan and the two lowest-cost silver plans in 16 major cities. The second-lowest cost silver plan in each state is of particular interest as it acts as a benchmark that helps determine how much assistance eligible individuals can receive in the form of federal tax credits. The findings show that in general, individuals will pay slightly less to enroll in the second-lowest cost plan in 2015 than they did in 2014, prior to the application of tax credits.
Although premium changes vary substantially across and within states, premium changes for 2015 in general are modest when looking at the low-cost insurers in the marketplaces, where enrollment is concentrated. While the analysis provides an early look at how competitive dynamics may be influencing health insurance premiums, it is important to bear in mind that the overall picture may change as comprehensive data across all fifty states becomes available.”
“Last week, the Obama Administration announced the appointment of a new chief executive officer (CEO) for the federal health insurance marketplace under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Kevin Counihan—who headed up Connecticut’s health insurance exchange, which worked quite well—will fill the newly created position.
Calling this position a CEO represents semantic gymnastics of a sort. That’s because CEOs generally have near-total autonomy to manage an organization, reporting only to a board of directors. Nothing like that really exists in government, short of the president. In this case, the new CEO reports to the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, so he is firmly ensconced in the normal federal agency bureaucracy. That may be a positive, because it respects the traditional lines of authority and accountability that help the government function.”
“In 2002, in a modification of the primary healthcare information privacy rule under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, HHS removed patient consent as a requirement for the release and disclosure of patient information for most common uses. In so doing, HHS gave a regulatory green light to electronic health data disclosures.
Twelve years later, it looks as if Apple is laying down a big bet in the opposite direction by placing consent-management restrictions on developers who plan to use its HealthKit mobile application platform, which is expected to be part of its new operating system to be released later this month, according to published reports.
According to the Guardian, which quotes as its primary source an article in the Financial Times, Apple has informed developers that they “’must not sell an end-user’s health information collected through the HealthKit APIs to advertising platforms, data brokers or information resellers.””
“Obamacare created a new entitlement through its exchange subsidies and vastly expanded another one, Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office expects these two pieces of the law to cost over $1.8 trillion over the next decade.
To offset some of this new spending, the law includes 18 new or increased taxes and fees that are estimated to bring in nearly $800 billion in new revenue from 2013-2022. Many of Obamacare’s taxes fall directly on the middle class, breaking the president’s promise to the contrary, while others will affect taxpayers indirectly through increased costs for goods, higher insurance premiums or lost wages.”
“A research network funded with millions by the Affordable Care Act will begin conducting vast studies next year to compare standard medical treatments. But what about the 100 million patients in the network — do they have a choice in the matter?
Will researchers get permission from each of those patients? And if patients are told about the studies, what, exactly, will they be told? These questions have bioethicists, scientists and health care officials debating how to bring the question of patient informed consent into the 21st century.
Obamacare is best known for extending health coverage to more Americans. But the health care law has many provisions aimed at improving health care outcomes and safety while lowering costs. One element is “comparative effectiveness” research: not just finding out whether a drug or treatment is safe and effective but comparing drugs head to head to find out which is better, for everyone or certain populations.
And with electronic medical records and vast pools of data, some of these studies have the potential to make lightning-fast, dramatic discoveries. But informed consent issues have the potential to slow such studies and make them too expensive.”
“Dive Brief:
•In an effort to reduce the backlog of contested Medicare claims, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has offered to pay hospitals 68% of what they say they are owed for short-term inpatient stays.
•The system of hearings on challenged claims has been on hold since December, when the HHS Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals temporarily suspended most new requests for administrative law judge hearings on payment denials by recovery audit contractors.
•Hospitals will have 60 days to decide whether to accept CMS’ offer, which does not apply to any short-term hospital admission that occurred after October 1, 2013.”
“Josiah Citrin’s Melisse and Suzanne Goin’s Lucques, The Larder restaurants, Tavern and the new AOC are just the latest in a group of Los Angeles restaurants implementing a 3% employee benefit surcharge to all guest checks..
Goin, along with Citrin and Rustic Canyon’s Josh Loeb and Zoe Nathan all made the announcement to add the surcharge in recent newsletters to customers. The surcharge started showing up on guest checks Monday.
“To us, when we rolled it out, we thought people would want to support places that are supporting their staff,” Loeb told The Times. “I would do that. If I knew a place was supporting their staff, I’d want to go there.”
According to Loeb, the decision to add a surcharge rather than increase menu prices was twofold.
“We wanted to have our menu prices be an accurate reflection of ingredient costs, and we also wanted give customers a little bit of control and power,” said Loeb. “If we were to call out every ingredient price increase, how do you designate where the line is drawn?””