Recently, the Obama administration said 11.3 million Americans had signed up for 2016 health exchange plans by late December.
“That’s still significantly lower than what experts had initially expected at this point in time in exchange implementation,” said Caroline Pearson, senior vice president with health care consulting firm Avalere. “We had anticipated, based on the Congressional Budget Office estimates, that perhaps 21 million people might be enrolled in 2016.”
“Many middle income people continue to suggest that exchange plans just aren’t affordable for them,” Pearson told CNBC. “Even with the subsidies, they simply can’t make the monthly premiums work in addition to all of the out of pocket costs.”
Between 1999 and 2015, premiums increased by 203%, outpacing both inflation and workers’ earnings. Between 2014 and 2015, the average premium for single and family coverage increased 4%, and over the past 5 years, deductibles increased faster than both premiums and wages.
The Obama administration so far is making little progress in getting more young adults to sign up for health policies on the federal insurance exchange, according to figures released Thursday.
26% of people who signed up for coverage as of Dec. 26 in the 38 states that use the federal exchange were ages 18 to 34, according to a report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which administers the law. That figure is largely unchanged from a roughly comparable two-month period through Jan. 16, 2015.
The Obama administration wasn’t able to ensure that all tax-credit payments made to insurers under the health law in 2014 were on behalf of consumers who had paid their premiums, according to a federal oversight agency. The Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General released the report Wednesday. The findings raise questions about the oversight of tax-credit payments that went to insurers on behalf of consumers who qualified for financial assistance.
This week, a bill – the Restoring Americans’ Healthcare Freedom Act – will go to President Barack Obama’s desk. This bill would repeal his signature domestic policy achievement, the Affordable Care Act or ObamaCare. Of course the president will veto this bill, and he and his supporters will say this is no more than Republican political theatre.
But they’re wrong; it’s not just a stunt. Rather, this bill achieves three important things: It shows that Republicans are dedicated to fighting a bad policy with demonstrably bad results. It confirms that Republicans are listening to the will of the people on this policy. And Republicans are reminding the public that they can be trusted to repeal ObamaCare with a new Republican president.
This Kaiser Family Foundation/New York Times survey provides an in-depth look at the experiences of Americans ages 18-64 who say they or someone in their household had problems paying medical bills in the past year. The survey explores the causes of medical bill problems and the impacts they have on individuals and their families, finances, and access to health care. To provide context, a shorter companion survey was conducted among those who do not report having medical bill problems.
UnitedHealth Group Inc., the largest U.S. health insurer, said its rates for ObamaCare plans in New York may be too low because the failure of a competing insurer last year might lead to shortfalls in payments designed to stabilize Obamacare markets.
In states like New York, health insurers participating in ObamaCare negotiate annually with regulators to set prices for coverage. UnitedHealth’s rates were set anticipating risk-sharing payments designed to stabilize the new insurance markets, William Golden, the company’s northeast region chief executive officer, said Wednesday. If the loss of a participant reduces the funds available to UnitedHealth, the company’s rates in New York’s ObamaCare market may be insufficient, he said.
Going into President Barack Obama’s last year in office, progress has stalled on reducing the number of uninsured Americans under his signature health care law, according to a major survey out Thursday.
The share of U.S. adults without health insurance was 11.9% in the last three months of 2015, essentially unchanged from the start of the year, according to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. The ongoing survey, based on daily interviews with 500 people, has been used by media, social scientists, and administration officials to track the law’s impact.
Are New Yorkers looking at a health insurance tax to pay for the more than $200 million in unpaid doctor and hospital bills remaining after the collapse of the state’s consumer-run nonprofit insurance co-op? Or could that money come from the billions in bank settlements that have flowed to state coffers in recent years?
Those are among the questions that lawmakers and Gov. Andrew Cuomo will likely be debating in the upcoming legislative session. Also unclear is the future status of the approximately 215,000 New Yorkers who had low-cost health insurance policies through the short-lived Health Republic co-op.
The Congress has, for the first time, sent legislation to the president repealing great swaths of ObamaCare. The House passed repeal bills in every Congress since the health overhaul law was enacted, but the Harry-Reid-controlled Senate never acted, blocking the bills from reaching the Oval Office. Mr. Obama will veto the bill, of course, but it sets an important marker for action that Congress could take next year under a new president who would sign the legislation.