While the Affordable Care Act has achieved a second victory before the Supreme Court and produced significant coverage gains, it might also have produced a less positive outcome: in an NBER working paper, Penn LDI colleagues Mark Pauly, Adam Leive and Scott Harrington found that a large portion of non-poor (measured by income above 138% of the poverty level) who gained coverage now have a higher financial burden and lower welfare (well-being) than when they were uninsured. The authors call this extra burden a “price of responsibility” for complying with the individual mandate to purchase coverage.
With the health insurance markets open for next year’s enrollment, Eve Campeau says she’s planning to look carefully at the fine print. Last time she shopped, she switched to a plan with a lower monthly premium, but found herself paying far more out-of-pocket for medications and doctor visits. While she might be saving money on the premium, she is reluctant to go to seek medical care because of the up-front cost.
A total of $1.23 billion in federal taxpayer dollars has now been sunk in 12 of 23 co-ops created under Obamacare that have gone out of business, representing another Obamacare failure, lawmakers say. Co-ops in Arizona and Michigan went out of business last week, adding themselves to the 10 that have already failed in Utah, Kentucky, New York, Nevada, Louisiana, Oregon, Colorado, Tennessee, South Carolina, and a co-op that served both Iowa and Nebraska.
The majority of ObamaCare’s insurance co-ops—12 of 23—have now folded, and their $1.24 billion in federal loans has all but vaporized. More will fail, nearly a million Americans may lose coverage, and now the contagion from their failures is spreading.
The Affordable Care Act’s third open enrollment season started Nov. 1, and federal officials are hoping to reach about a million people like Thomas across the country. Newark has an estimated 112,000 uninsured people, around one-third of the city’s population. It is one of five areas – along with Houston, Dallas, Chicago and Miami – where the federal government is focusing enrollment efforts. Altogether, Washington will spend more than $100 million on marketing and enrollment.
Asking whether the Obamacare Cadillac tax will increase worker wages might seem nonsensical on its face. But wait until you hear the answer: yes AND no. Don’t worry: Schrodinger’s cat hasn’t wandered into the thicket of health policy (nor am I channeling my inner two-handed economist). It’s a trick question: the answer depends on whether employers respond to the Cadillac tax by trimming health benefits to avoid the tax, or instead simply keep their health benefits as is and pass the tax onto their employees. For employers who trim health benefits I have a high degree of confidence that on average, worker wages will rise. For employers who absorb the Cadillac tax increase, average worker wages will fall.
The Supreme Court agreed Friday to settle a widespread dispute between the Obama administration and religious non-profits over insurance coverage for birth control, which is sure to elevate issues of religious freedom and reproductive rights in next year’s presidential campaign.
As Congress considers year-end legislative options, one small change in the Affordable Care Act could make a big difference in access to quality health care for millions of Americans: Lifting the ban on creation and expansion of physician-owned hospitals.
A lack of oversight when implementing the consumer operated and oriented plans (CO-OPs) as well as their inability to compete are to blame for the small insurers’ recent string of failures, experts said Thursday at a hearing held by the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Health plans that offer coverage of doctors and hospitals outside the plan’s network are getting harder to find on the insurance marketplaces, according to two analyses published this week. Two-thirds of the 131 carriers that offered silver-level preferred provider organization plans in 2015 will either drop them entirely or offer fewer of them in January, an analysis by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation found. Those cutbacks will affect customers in 37 states, according to the foundation.