Lower than expected enrollment, rising premiums, and declining issuer participation have led to an increased focus by state and federal policymakers on stabilizing the individual health insurance market. Legislative proposals aimed at addressing these concerns are currently being discussed. Assuming the package of proposals were approved by Congress and issuers were permitted and willing to refile rates for the 2018 plan year, a combination of these policies may lead to the reduction of individual market premiums—as compared to current law–by 13% to 17% for 2018, driven primarily by the reinsurance program as well as the continued Health Insurance Tax moratorium.
. . .
Chen and Weinberg recently conducted an analysis of international health systems and concluded that single-payer advocates are substantially overstating the prevalence and success of such systems. While many other countries have universal health systems and feature more government control over individual health care decisions, almost none are actually single-payer. And all of them are wrestling with largely the same challenges Americans are, making different but equally difficult trade-offs on cost, quality and access.
. . .
Sen. Patty Murray has agreed to a key demand of Sen. Lamar Alexander, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which could potentially move bipartisan health care talks forward. Murray has agreed to “significant state flexibility” in order to reach an agreement, per a senior Democratic aide.
. . .
Senate Republicans’ last-gasp Obamacare repeal effort is gaining steam, with key senators who tanked the last push in July signaling new openness to the latest attempt and GOP leaders growing increasingly bullish.
While the proposal written by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.) remains short of 50 votes, it also has just one hard “no” vote, from Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, and another expected “no” in Sen. Susan Collins of Maine. Three “no” votes would kill the bill, but in an encouraging sign for repeal proponents, no one is stepping forward yet to deliver that final nail.
. . .
Unless Republicans can agree by Sept. 30, they won’t be able to pass a bill without 60 Senate votes. Here’s a wild idea: Instead of repealing ObamaCare, make it unconstitutional. Recall how the Supreme Court split when it upheld ObamaCare in 2012. What broke the tie was a novel opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts, who upheld the law’s individual mandate by declaring it a tax. The GOP can take advantage of that premise and pass a two-page bill clarifying that Congress did not intend to use its taxing power to enforce the individual mandate and disavows the same going forward. Congress could state that it intends ObamaCare to contain no severability provision—meaning that, as the four dissenting justices agreed in 2012, the entire law must fall if the mandate is unconstitutional.
. . .