Obamacare is entering a new stage. The recent announcement by United Health Care that it will stop selling insurance to individuals and families through most health insurance exchanges marks the transition. In the next stage, federal and state policy makers must decide how to use broad regulatory powers they have under the Affordable Care Act to stabilize, expand, and diversify risk pools, improve local market competition, encourage insurers to compete on product quality rather than premium alone, and promote effective risk management. In addition, insurance companies must master rate setting, plan design, and network management and effectively manage the health risk of their enrollees in order to stay profitable, and consumers must learn how to choose and use the best plan for their circumstances.
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The uninsurance rate for nonelderly adults increased in the decade before the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), driven by declining rates of employer-based coverage, especially during the recession at the end of the decade. The ACA was intended to decrease the percentage of the population without health insurance and to provide “quality, affordable health care for all.” The purpose of this brief is to consider how uninsurance rates are changing under the ACA.
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Smaller insurers with experience in Medicaid, such as Centene Corp. and Molina Healthcare, are outperforming the broader insurance industry on the federal health exchanges. Their success is putting a spotlight on their business model as the Obama administration and other insurers seek to stabilize the fledgling individual market.
If Medicaid-like plan features become the norm, consumers and medical providers would be substantially affected. Such plans are often popular in the exchanges for their low premiums, but consumers have criticized limits on their access to medical providers such as doctors. And physicians fault the plans for low reimbursement rates.
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Two GOP lawmakers have introduced a bill that deviates from years of Republican health care orthodoxy by not attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) on Monday formally announced a bill that they say would cover more people than the Affordable Care Act does now. While the bill does not repeal the 2010 health care law, it would repeal both the individual and employer mandates and limits the “non-essential” products that plans would have to cover.
They aren’t being shy about how great they think their proposal is. They are calling it the “World’s Greatest Healthcare Plan.”
The Obama Administration is unlawfully diverting billions of dollars from taxpayers to insurance companies that sell Obamacare policies.
That is the conclusion reached in a legal opinion letter released today by former Ambassador and White House Counsel Boyden Gray.
Mr. Gray’s letter reinforces the conclusion of legal experts at the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service who found that the administration’s actions “would appear to be in conflict with the plain text” of the Obamacare statute.
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