Three Republican senators have sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services expressing concern for the “lack of oversight for more than $1 billion in federal grants” given to state-based marketplaces.
In the letter to CMS Acting Administrator Andy Slavitt, the senators — Orrin Hatch of Utah, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and John Barrasso of Wyoming — note a handful of state-based exchanges have switched to the federal marketplace, run by CMS, and inquire if the agency will seek reimbursement for funds the states received from CMS to set up a state-based marketplace.
In February of 2015, IRS issued Notice 2015-16 which was intended to discuss a number of potential approaches to the implementation of pieces of the tax. At the time, IRS requested comment on a number of issues including the definition of applicable coverage, how to figure the cost of that coverage, and the caps used to calculate the tax.
In July of 2015, IRS issued Notice 2015-52 (downloads as a pdf) to address even more concerns, including who may be liable for the tax, employer aggregation, allocation of tax and payment of the tax. Here are some of the highlights with a little bit of commentary:
One of the last remaining features of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that has yet to be implemented is the so-called “Cadillac tax,” which takes effect in 2018. Section 4980I will impose a 40 percent excise tax on employee benefits the cost of which exceeds certain statutory limits. The Cadillac tax is intended to limit the generosity of employer coverage on the theory that excess coverage encourages excess health care expenditures and thus drives up the total cost of health care. The tax is also, however, one of the major anticipated sources of revenue under the ACA, expected to raise $87 billion over the next 10 years.
WASHINGTON — Hoping to avoid another political uproar over the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration is trying to persuade states to cut back big rate increases requested by many health insurance companies for 2016.
Federal officials refuse to identify the troubled Obamacare health co-ops that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has placed in a special risk category requiring “enhanced oversight” due to low profitability or low enrollment.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/03/obama-administration-refuses-to-identify-troubled-healthcare-co-ops/#ixzz3hsEAlG77
The federal government could be out more than $140 million by the time a defunct Iowa health-insurance cooperative’s finances are settled, a new court filing suggests.
CoOportunity Health, which was created under the Affordable Care Act, went belly up last December after losing millions of dollars. Its financing included $147 million in loans from the federal government. That money was used to launch the company in 2012 and then to keep it afloat as it sold health-insurance policies to about 110,000 people in Iowa and Nebraska.
The poll from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, the research arm of the consulting firm, finds that 30 percent of people with insurance through ObamaCare’s marketplaces are satisfied with their plans.
ObamaCare enrollees are less satisfied with their plans than people with other types of health insurance, according to a new poll.
The poll from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, the research arm of the consulting firm, finds that 30 percent of people with insurance through ObamaCare’s marketplaces are satisfied with their plans.
Andy Slavitt — President Obama’s choice to manage Obamacare, Medicare and Medicaid — was linked seven years ago to a massive medical data fraud scheme that resulted in what was then the largest settlement ever by an insurance company.
If he is confirmed by the Senate, Slavitt will head the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which manages the federal government’s three biggest health care programs. He will manage an estimated $1 trillion in benefits that are paid to millions of doctors, patients and hospitals.
When the ACA networks began covering patients in 2014, one of the first complaints was that many plans were trying to cut costs by including many fewer providers in their networks than pre-ACA health plans. In some cases, patients even had to cancel previously scheduled surgeries and lost access to prescription drugs, since the surgeons and/or the hospitals were not in their new networks. Now, a study by the health consulting firm Avalere confirms that these were not isolated cases – on average, exchange plans include a 34 percent fewer in-network providers than non-exchange plans (such as employer-sponsored plans), with even larger shortcomings in specialties like oncology and cardiology.