Executives with Arizona’s nonprofit health insurance co-op said Tuesday that they have failed to come up with additional financial backing and the insurer plans to shut down all operations December 31, 2015. The announcement by Meritus Health Partners means 59,000 Arizonans it now covers need to find a new insurer by December 15 if they want coverage on January 1, 2016.
While views of the health care law have been narrowly divided for much of the year, this month, more say they have an unfavorable view of the law than a favorable one (45 percent versus 38 percent, a statistically significant difference).
Tara O’Neill of the American Action Forum argues that the decision over how biosimilars should be reimbursed by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) should be determined by economic principles based on the value of the medication to patients and without putting patient safety and access to such products at risk. If the statutory text does not clearly provide for the favorable regulatory outcome of these factors, it should be amended.
“Taxpayers should not be forced to throw good money after bad,” Grace-Marie Turner said in an interview with LifeZette. Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a not-for-profit health and tax policy research organization. “Congress would be well advised to exercise its oversight function to ensure no additional federal dollars are wasted on the program, as well as investigate how the taxpayer loans have been spent and who will pay it back,” she said.
Philip Dorsey, a retired lawyer and legal editor, recounts his experience with health insurance since the Affordable Care Act was enacted. Mr. Dorsey has been forced out of his plan each New Year’s Day since 2012.
“In the first year I got a glimpse of how reform reduced coverage for the many on the group health plans offered by large corporations to their employees. In the second year I saw how it had similar effects on the owners and employees in small businesses that obtain group plans through professional or trade associations. In the third year I would see how individuals who lost group insurance coverage were affected when forced into the individual market.”