Articles on the implementation of ObamaCare.
Land of Lincoln Health, an insurance co-op created under ObamaCare, is no longer taking new small-business customers. The health insurer announced in October that it would severely cap enrollment on the exchange, HealthCare.gov, and limited new small-business clients in particular to help the co-op survive long term. More than half of the co-ops nationwide have failed.
Why is enrollment so low among families making significantly more than the poverty line? Part of the answer might be because ObamaCare itself imposes a significant series of new taxes on that same middle class, denying them the disposable income needed to purchase ObamaCare plans. A few of these tax increases include the Flex Spending Account Tax, the High Medical Bills Tax, the Medicine Cabinet Tax, the Individual Mandate Non-Compliance Tax, the Tanning Tax, and the Health Savings Account Withdrawal Tax.
One in five of us needs mental-health treatment at any given time, and for those who get good care, the recovery rate is between 60 percent and 80 percent — higher than in many other medical fields. But only about 40 percent of the people who need treatment get any help, and those who do “often get bounced around in a system that leaves them feeling misunderstood, stigmatized, brushed aside.”
Political discussion aside, The Affordable Care Act will fail for business reasons. The fundamental reason the ACA will fail is because it mandates a minimum Medical Loss Ratio (MLR), or the percentage of premiums paid out to cover health care expenses. The problems associated with mandating MLR are two-fold: 1) incentivizing the insurance industry to become less efficient; 2) contributing to the elimination of new insurers entering the market and increasing the level of competition.
The latest turmoil in health insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act has emboldened both conservatives who want to shrink the federal role and liberals who want to expand it. UnitedHealth Group announced last week that it may pull out of the marketplaces in 2017 after losing money this year. This followed the collapse of 12 of the 23 nonprofit insurance cooperatives created with federal loans under the health law. In addition, insurance markets in many states are unstable. Premiums are volatile and insurers say their new customers have been sicker than expected.
Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute, Tarren Bragdon of the Foundation for Government Accountability, and Daniel Landon of the Missouri Hospital Association joined former Secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius to discuss Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act.
Complete footage of the debate is available here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, and Part 6.
The sudden collapse of the largest nonprofit insurance cooperative created under the Affordable Care Act is causing headaches in New York, especially for medical providers owed millions of dollars for treating the failed plan’s patients. Hospitals, doctors, and other clinicians are legally obligated to continue treating Health Republic patients through the end of the month but have been given no assurances they will ever be paid for that care.
Executives with Arizona’s nonprofit health insurance co-op said Tuesday that they have failed to come up with additional financial backing and the insurer plans to shut down all operations December 31, 2015. The announcement by Meritus Health Partners means 59,000 Arizonans it now covers need to find a new insurer by December 15 if they want coverage on January 1, 2016.
“Taxpayers should not be forced to throw good money after bad,” Grace-Marie Turner said in an interview with LifeZette. Turner is president of the Galen Institute, a not-for-profit health and tax policy research organization. “Congress would be well advised to exercise its oversight function to ensure no additional federal dollars are wasted on the program, as well as investigate how the taxpayer loans have been spent and who will pay it back,” she said.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has proposed mandating minimum network standards for health plans sold on the federal marketplace in 2017 as part of an effort to handle the broad shift toward narrow provider networks. The Affordable Care Act requires that all medical policies on the exchanges have enough in-network hospitals and doctors for members so that “all services will be accessible without unreasonable delay.” However, the 381-page proposed rule (PDF) released Friday goes a step further, asking states to establish a quantitative measure to ensure ACA policyholders have sufficient access to healthcare providers.