Monthly Archives: July 2016

This past weekend, Democrats finalized their 2016 election platform at a meeting in Orlando. Oddly enough, it calls for the destruction of Obamacare.

“Americans should be able to access public coverage through Medicare or a public option”–that is, government-run healthcare–says the platform. In a nod to former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, who supports a government-run, single-payer “Medicare for All” healthcare system, it also states that “healthcare is a right.”

They’re embracing single-payer because of Obamacare’s ongoing collapse. As a new report from Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., makes clear, Obamacare’s exchanges are crumbling. Consumers in many parts of the country have access to only one or two insurers–and may soon have none at all.

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This week, President Obama published an President Obama published an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association that is likely to be his last and most comprehensive defense of the Affordable Care Act — a.k.a. Obamacare — while in office. Not surprisingly, it’s a rather one-sided accounting.

The president says the law has reduced the number of uninsured Americans, slowed the pace of rising health-care costs, and improved access to high-quality health care for millions of Americans. He also says more progress would have been made if not for the “hyperpartisanship” infecting Washington. He betrays no hint of self-awareness that perhaps his own conduct and statements, and the manner in which the law was pushed through Congress and enacted, might have been causes of the deep divisions in health-care policy that have persisted throughout his presidency.

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Senior Obama administration officials took a series of decisions beginning in late 2013 that ranged from the reckless to the illegal in an effort to keep insurers participating in health insurance exchanges.

Consumers who purchase their insurance through the public exchanges will likely see prices rise again next year, according to a new analysis of proposed premiums for next year.

The Avalere Health analysis of 14 states where data is available finds that premium increases for average silver plans would go up by 11 percent. Lower-cost silver plans would increase a bit less, by 8 percent.

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The word is right there in the name of the law: “Affordable.” The ACA promised to bring health insurance down to earth, letting uninsured people buy policies that didn’t break the bank, and bringing the astonishing cost of medical care into reach for all Americans.

What’s becoming clear, three years in, is that “affordable” depends where you look. Twenty million more people are covered and tens of millions of others have broader benefits because of Obamacare. But many insurers, faced with new coverage requirements and competition on premiums, have shifted costs onto consumers.

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Health spending in the U.S. grew to $3.2 trillion in 2015, fueled partly by the expansion of health insurance to millions of people under the Affordable Care Act, according to a new estimate published in the journal Health Affairs.

The study also looks forward, projecting that through the next decade, national health spending will climb at 5.8 percent per year, on average, to encompass a fifth of the economy by 2025.

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A top Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services official defended the health insurance co-ops created under the Affordable Care Act Wednesday, after four more of the nonprofit insurers announced they would take steps to wind down in recent weeks.

Kevin Counihan, the CEO of HealthCare.Gov, told a subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reforms that the co-ops have spurred innovation within the health insurance marketplace and given consumers more opportunities. But Republicans on the panel railed against the program, as about two-thirds of the co-ops have now announced steps to close down.

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Opt-out payments offered by employers may be used to determine affordability under the Affordable Care Act, depending on whether they are conditional or unconditional, according to IRS proposed rules.

Under the proposed rules, opt-out payments, cash payments given to employees who opt-out of their employer-sponsored health insurance, will be treated as a salary reduction for the purposes of determining health insurance affordability if they are considered unconditional.

An unconditional opt-out payment refers to an arrangement where the employee declines employer-sponsored health insurance without satisfying any other requirements.

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New failures are piling up among the member-run health insurance co-ops carrying out one of the Affordable Care Act’s most idealistic goals, leaving just seven remaining when the health law’s fourth enrollment season starts in the fall.

There were 23 in 2014.

For the rest — which all posted annual losses in 2015, according to the National Alliance of State Health Co-Ops — survival is job No. 1. Some are diversifying to serve larger employers, no longer limiting themselves to their ACA mandate to offer health plans to individuals and small businesses. A Maryland co-op has sued the federal government to avoid paying millions of dollars to other insurers under the ACA’s complex formula to keep premiums stable by balancing risks among insurers and helping ailing ones. Other co-ops are trying to renegotiate contracts with hospitals and other providers.

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The Illinois Insurance Department moved Tuesday to shut down Land of Lincoln because of its unstable financial health, leaving about 49,000 policyholders in a lurch. They will lose coverage in the coming months, but neither regulators nor the company have said exactly when.

Policyholders will be able to buy insurance from a different carrier to cover them for the rest of 2016, according to the state Insurance Department. But switching plans is going to cost them.

The co-pays and deductibles enrollees have been paying since January will not transfer to new plans. A new plan will reset deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums paid by consumers.

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