Category: Impact

According to Robert Wood Johnson Foundation data that looks at state markets where all insurers must sell plans that meet Obamacare standards, regardless of how they’re purchased, more than half of the 22 million people who buy their own insurance use Obamacare marketplaces, where most of them get a federal tax credit to help pay for coverage. The rest buy directly from an insurer or broker, and they do not get a tax credit. Supporters of the Affordable Care Act hoped the law would spur more competition among insurers across the country. But so far, the law has not delivered on that promise, especially in states that never had much competition. Even before Obamacare, there have always been two distinct markets: states that still have plenty of competition and states that rely heavily on one or two insurers. In 15 states, eight or more insurers offer Obamacare plans. They are mostly the same ones where no single insurer had a dominant share of the market in 2013, before the law was enacted. But the 19 states that currently have fewer than five carriers statewide are all ones where a single insurer had more than half of the overall market before Obamacare.

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In a new book aimed at anyone who wants to have the knowledge to evaluate what people are saying in the state and national health care debates, nationally known health policy expert Greg Scandlen provides clear, concise, common sense explanations of why generally accepted health policy ideas fail the reality test. A good guide to separating fact from fiction in the ideological battleground of US health care policy, Myth Busters: Why Health Reform Always Goes Awry provides the basic information needed to evaluate policy proposals and a useful roadmap for unwinding the policy mistakes of the past.

The book covers 30 health care myths, ideas widely believed to be true even though they are false. Unfortunately, these myths underlie the policy initiatives at the root of the last 50 years of US health care reform failure.

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Congress can and should still move forward with important health care reforms to ease the burden on millions of American businesses and workers. The National Restaurant Association and the one million foodservice locations they represent have urged elected officials to make a few basic changes to relieve the burdens on businesses that are stifling growth and impacting their ability to hire new employees. Regardless of the Republican bill’s passage, legislative and regulatory constraints imposed by the ACA continue to negatively impact restaurants.
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Americans view Humana Inc. and Aetna Inc. no less favorably after the industry giants announced their plans to pull out of the Affordable Care Act’s individual exchanges in 2018, according to Morning Consult Brand Intelligence data.

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Should Republicans be worried that they will lose control of the House in 2018 because they adopted legislation that repeals Obamacare? Don’t bet on it. Under the current House bill, states could let insurers take a person’s health status into account when deciding how much to charge in premiums. According to the media narrative, this would take away coverage from those with pre-existing conditions. The public furor over this allegation is predictable, but that does not make pre-existing conditions an existential threat to Republican political chances in the next election. The GOP plan protects everyone who remains continually covered by health insurance and they cannot be charged more if they have a pre-existing condition.

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For Linda Dearman, the House vote last week to repeal the Affordable Care Act was a welcome relief.

Ms. Dearman, of Bartlett, Ill., voted for President Trump largely because of his contempt for the federal health law. She and her husband, a partner in an engineering firm, buy their own insurance, but late last year they dropped their $1,100-a-month policy and switched to a bare-bones plan that does not meet the law’s requirements. They are counting that the law will be repealed before they owe a penalty.

“Now it looks like it will be, and we’re thrilled about that,” Ms. Dearman, 54, said. “We are so glad to feel represented for a change.”

The voices of people like the Dearmans helped spawn a political movement after the passage of the health law seven years ago.

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Of the 498 rating regions in the United States, 146 had only one insurer selling nongroup coverage through its state marketplace in 2017; 125 had just two insurers. Markets with one insurer include the entire states of Alaska, Alabama, North Carolina, Oklahoma, most of Arizona, and rural areas of several states. Markets with only one or two marketplace insurers tend to be much less populated than areas with more competing insurers.

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Health care has become an ongoing source of pain for many small-business owners. It was the top issue owners wanted Trump to address in a survey of 700 owners and prospective buyers in late February by BizBuy Sell, a marketplace for small businesses.

Among respondents, 60 percent favored an ACA repeal. The major reason: spiraling health insurance premiums — often a result of insurance companies fleeing the marketplace.

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Two years ago, I was a 7-month-pregnant widow with one toddler who got a letter two weeks after my husband died informing me I’d lost my third or fourth health insurance plan since the ACA passed. If you’ll remember, the promise was that I could keep my plan if I liked it. I could not. While the ACA has helped millions of people, there are many of us—many with far fewer resources than I—who now have much more expensive, less effective, junkier, nearly unusable plans than we had back when our allegedly “junk” plans were outlawed. Again, we are not the only ACA story. But we are part of the story, we were sold a bill of goods, and we’re often overlooked.

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