The impact of ObamaCare on doctors and patients, companies inside and outside the health sector, and American workers and taxpayers
The health law’s expansion of Medicaid in many states hasn’t benefited nonprofit hospitals in those states as expected, according to a new report by Moody’s Investors Service.
Hospitals in the mostly blue states that expanded Medicaid were largely expected to benefit from fewer unpaid bills and more paying customers, but that hasn’t generally translated into better operating margins or cash flow, Moody’s found.
Performance improved across the board—including in the mostly Republican-led states that opted out of the law’s Medicaid expansion—as the economy gained steam last year and unemployment declined.
About 13 percent of people who signed up for health insurance coverage in 2015 under the Affordable Care Act have fallen off the rolls, many because they failed to pay their share of premiums, the Obama administration said Tuesday.
Approximately 6.4 million Americans could lose their subsidies for health insurance if the Supreme Court rules against the Obama administration this month, according to new federal data released Tuesday.
The Obama administration has posted the 2016 rate increases in excess of 10% that the Obamacare health plans are requesting.
There are a lot of them.
The number of uninsured people declined by nearly eight million during the first nine months of 2014, reducing their ranks to 37.2 million, according to an analysis of data released late last week by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS).
Healthcare expenses appear to have climbed at a brisk pace, backing previous calculations that the healthcare industry remains a force even during an otherwise lackluster quarter.
The U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis released its second estimate of first-quarter economic growth, finding that healthcare spending climbed 5.4% annually when adjusted for inflation.
The GOP’s months-long debate over when and how to send a repeal of Obamacare to the president’s desk now appears to have an answer.
They can’t do it all at once.
Repealing the law “root and branch” is probably out of the question, the chamber’s parliamentarian is hinting, because some parts of Obamacare don’t affect the federal budget. That’s a must in order to use the obscure procedure known in Senate parlance as reconciliation, which allows lawmakers to avoid the 60-vote filibuster hurdle and pass bills on a simple majority vote.
That’s not the GOP’s only problem. Under those rules any Obamacare repeal has to reduce — not increase — the deficit. So Republicans will have to pick and choose which parts of the Affordable Care Act they most want to ditch.
Obama will, of course, veto any bill that significantly damages his signature domestic policy achievement. But the entire process has the makings of a difficult political exercise that will reveal something about the GOP’s priorities when it comes to the reviled law, forcing the party to go beyond the pile-on repeal rhetoric and say specifically what it would do and how it would pay for it.
The HSA Council’s study is designed to address the uncertainty surrounding Cadillac Tax liability by providing a relational
tool employers can use to compare the cost of their plan against average plan data compiled by AHIP and KFF, the
industry benchmarks. Some employers are currently contracting for healthcare plan designs through 2018. Since
industry data is not consistent and there are considerable state-by-state variations in average premiums, employers and
brokers are looking for affordable plan designs that allow them to avoid the Cadillac Tax. HSA-qualified plans can be
that solution.
Democrats and Republicans are sitting on the edge of their seats, waiting to see what the Supreme Court will decide in King v. Burwell, the looming decision about the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, as it has come to be known.
If the Supreme Court agrees with the challenge, an estimated 13 million people will lose their federal health insurance subsidies. The plaintiffs have argued that based on the literal reading of the legislation, the government is only supposed to provide citizens with subsidies in states that set up their own health care exchanges (a total of 16 states). The sentence in the law upon which their claim is based, The New York Times reported, was based on a sloppy error made during the drafting process. Regardless, the plaintiffs argue that in states where residents rely on federal subsidies (34 altogether), the law does not provide for subsidies.
If the Supreme Court ruling takes away their subsidies, a substantial number of the citizens in those states will not be able to pay for their health care. Many younger and healthier Americans will take the risk and decide that they won’t purchase insurance, a trend which would send prices skyrocketing. An ever-growing cycle would be devastating.
Senate Republicans want to create a top watchdog to dig into ObamaCare.
GOP Sens. Pat Roberts (Kansas) and Rob Portman (Ohio) have introduced legislation that would create an Office of the Special Inspector General for Monitoring the Affordable Care Act (SIGMA).
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) already has an inspector general, but Roberts said he wanted to create a position that could investigate ObamaCare across the federal government.
“While all of the federal agencies charged with implementing Obamacare have their own Offices of the Inspector General, they are all investigating this law in their own silos,” Roberts said in a statement. “The Health and Human Services Inspector General isn’t talking to the Treasury IG, or the Department of Labor IG, or the Homeland Security IG.”
The legislation would give SIGMA the authority to “conduct, supervise, and coordinate audits and investigations of the implementation and administration of programs and activities established under, and payment system changes made by, the Affordable Care Act,” according to the legislation.