After six years of rock-solid defense, top healthcare advocates in the Democratic Party are now willing to acknowledge that the Affordable Care Act has fallen flat on affordability.
At the Democratic National Convention this week, some of Hillary Clinton’s closest allies on healthcare are setting her up for a major battle to lower the cost of care, an issue they said needs to top her agenda as president.
“Healthcare costs, I really see as the next generation of healthcare reform,” Neera Tanden, the president of the Center for American Progress, said at a luncheon in downtown Philadelphia on Wednesday.
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Anthem Inc., the No. 2 U.S. health insurer by membership, said medical spending rose in the second quarter, driven by higher costs from the insurer’s Affordable Care Act plans and Medicaid business.
The shares dropped as much as 4.1 percent, the biggest intraday decline since April 27, and were down 0.5 percent to $136.95 at 9:55 a.m. Anthem said it spent 84.2 cents of every premium dollar on medical care, up from 82.1 cents a year earlier.
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Two scholars at the renowned Brookings Institution, Loren Adler and Paul Ginsburg, have published an analysis finding that “average premiums in the individual market actually dropped significantly upon implementation of the ACA [Affordable Care Act].” This contrasts with a plethora of evidence, including a rigorous 2014 Brookings study, showing that the ACA significantly increased premiums. In this post, I discuss methodological concerns with the Adler and Ginsburg approach as well as evidence that leads most scholars to reach a very different conclusion.
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Anthem Inc. said it is now projecting losses on its Affordable Care Act plans this year, a turnaround for a major insurer that had maintained a relatively optimistic tone about that business.
Anthem said it now believed it would see a “mid-single-digit” operating margin loss on its ACA plans in 2016, due to higher-than-expected medical costs. It expects better results next year, because it is seeking substantial premium increases.
Anthem’s financial performance on ACA plans had previously been a relative bright spot among major insurers, many of which continue to struggle.
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Health insurer Anthem Inc on Wednesday vowed to fight U.S. government efforts to block its planned acquisition of Cigna Corp and said it expects to lose money this year on its business selling individual health coverage under President Barack Obama’s healthcare law.
Anthem has argued that its planned $45-billion purchase of Cigna will give it greater leverage to negotiate better prices from healthcare providers and pass on those savings to consumers, including those signing up for “Obamacare” plans on public insurance exchanges.
“To be clear, our board and executive leadership team at Anthem is fully committed to challenging the (U.S. Department of Justice’s) decision in court,” Chief Executive Joseph Swedish told analysts on a conference call.
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