The average price of the most popular types of Obamacare health plans sold on the federal insurance marketplace will be at least 34 percent higher in 2018, according to an analysis released Wednesday.
The Avalere Health analysis also found lower — but still double-digit — average price hikes for the other types of Obamacare plans, which go on sale Nov. 1.
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A bipartisan Senate proposal to stabilize health insurance markets and continue paying subsidies to insurance companies would produce a modest reduction in federal budget deficits but would not substantially change the number of people with coverage, the Congressional Budget Office said on Wednesday.
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Anthem’s membership in the Affordable Care Act marketplaces will decline by 70% in 2018, executives told investors Wednesday on the insurer’s third-quarter earnings call. About 1.4 million people had ACA-compliant plans with Anthem as of Sept. 30, 900,000 of whom bought coverage on the exchanges.
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As California health care officials brace themselves for changes to the Affordable Care Act by President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress, state lawmakers today and Tuesday will hold a hearing examining the gaps in coverage and financing of California’s current system.
Among the topics expected to be front and center is single-payer health care and Senate Bill 562, introduced earlier this year by Senators Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens, and Toni Atkins, D-San Diego. That controversial proposal would replace California’s private health insurance market with a single, government-run plan with no premiums or deductibles for nearly 40 million Californians.
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The leaders of two major congressional committees reached a deal to fund Obamacare insurer payments in exchange for delaying enforcement of the law’s individual and employer mandates.
The chairmen of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees released the framework of the deal Tuesday.
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Republicans returning to Washington will decide in coming days whether to embrace or set aside a bipartisan health bill that has gained traction in Congress, a decision potentially made harder by President Donald Trump’s statements praising the effort but opposing the bill itself. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said on Sunday the bipartisan bill’s support includes all 48 Senate Democrats as well as the 12 publicly committed Republicans, enough to overcome any filibuster.
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Iowa is abandoning its quest to shed major elements of the Affordable Care Act, after federal health officials failed to approve the plan in time for the insurance-buying season that begins in just over a week. The state’s withdrawal comes two months after President Trump telephoned a top federal health official with instructions to reject Iowa’s proposal.
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Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans are hoping the Labor Department will identify a way to allow associations and small employers to create self-insured plans—or something similar. That change could allow them to adjust benefits and offer more affordable coverage to more people. Since the passage of ObamaCare, however, states are no longer the driving force behind most insurance mandates and regulations. Washington is. A more straightforward solution would be for Congress to change the law.
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Conservatives are supposed to get two wins in the Alexander-Murray bill. The first is the creation of “copper” plans within the Obamacare exchanges. Moderate Democrats have championed this idea as a way for consumers to buy plans with lower premiums and higher deductibles than others available on the exchange. But because the plans would still be subject to Obamacare’s regulations, they would still be a far cry from the low-cost catastrophic plans that conservatives would like to see. The deal also gives states a little more flexibility — but constrains that flexibility in a way that makes it valueless. States would have to show that any policy changes they make would lead to a comparable number of people having the same kind of comprehensive coverage that Obamacare seeks to foster. But that’s not the kind of coverage conservatives want to make the focus of public policy.
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President Donald Trump will support a bipartisan bill on health care only if it includes a series of conservative measures that Republicans sought in their failed effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, a White House spokesman said Thursday, as two senators officially unveiled the legislation without many of those demands. In order for Mr. Trump to support such legislation, it must provide relief from the ACA’s requirement that most people have health coverage or pay a penalty, the spokesman said Thursday. It should also roll back or end the requirement that certain employers provide health coverage, the White House official said.
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