Category Archives: ACA

New York State Investigates Christian Health Cost-Sharing Affiliate

Posted on by • Posted in ACA, Essential Health Benefits, Form vs Substance, Health Insurance Benefit Design, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, Out of Pocket Expenses, Preexisting Conditions, Short Term Health Insurance, Skinny Health Plans, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

Image result for New York State Investigates Christian Health Cost-Sharing Affiliate

Subpoenas have been issued to a company that solicits memberships for a health insurance alternative that offers no guarantees for covering medical bills.

New York State officials are investigating a business representing a major Christian group offering an alternative to health insurance, joining several states scrutinizing these cost-sharing programs that provide limited coverage.

On Wednesday, New York state insurance regulators issued a subpoena to Aliera, which markets the Christian ministry run by Trinity Healthshare, according to people who have seen the subpoena.

More than one million Americans have joined such groups, attracted by prices that are far lower than the cost of traditional insurance policies that must meet strict requirements established by the Affordable Care Act, like guaranteed coverage for pre-existing conditions.

 

These Christian nonprofit groups offer low rates because they are not classified as insurance and are under no legal obligation to pay medical claims. But state regulators are questioning some of the ministries’ aggressive marketing tactics, saying some consumers were misled or did not grasp the lack of comprehensive coverage in the case of a catastrophic illness.

Some members have paid hundreds of dollars a month, and then have been left with hundreds of thousands in unpaid medical bills in several states where the ministries, which are not subject to regulation as insurers, failed to follow through on pooling members’ expenses.

Numerous states are taking action against Aliera Healthcare, the for-profit company based in Georgia that was been the subject of an investigation by The Houston Chronicle. The Texas attorney general sued Aliera last summer to stop it from offering “unregulated insurance products to the public,” while Connecticut, Washington and New Hampshire are trying to stop Trinity and Aliera from doing business in those states.

Regulators say they are concerned that the ministry is, in fact, operating as an insurer. In New York, which has not previously investigated any ministries, there have been 15 to 20 complaints, including accusations that Aliera misrepresented the coverage being offered. It’s not clear how many customers Aliera has in New York.

“It’s deeply disappointing to see state regulators working to deny their residents access to more affordable alternatives offered by health care sharing ministries,” said Aliera in an emailed statement.

“We’re proud of the work we do to help ministries provide a more flexible method for securing affordable high-quality health care, and we will continue to vigorously defend against the false claims about our company, just as we expect the health care sharing ministries we serve to vigorously defend their members’ right to exercise their religious convictions in making health care choices,” it said.

Trinity, which was not subject to the subpoena, has said its website makes clear that the ministry does not offer health insurance.

 

 

 

The most expensive health care option of all? Do nothing.

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Aging Population, Antitrust, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Life Expectancy, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Medicare, Medicare for All, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior, Mortality, Opioid Epidemic, Out of Pocket Expenses, Status Quo, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/01/09/medicare-for-all-health-care-096367?utm_source=The+Fiscal+Times&utm_campaign=b67cf54986-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_01_09_10_31&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_714147a9cf-b67cf54986-390702969

Image result for healthcare policy

‘Medicare for all’ debate sidesteps cost of current system.

The projected multitrillion-dollar cost of “Medicare for All” has pitted Democratic presidential candidates against each other as they argue about the feasibility of single-payer health care.

But the reality is the current health system may cost trillions more in the long run and be less effective in saving lives.

Spending on Medicare, Medicaid, private health insurance and out-of-pocket expenses is projected to hit $6 trillion a year — and $52 trillion over the next decade. At the same time, the number of people with insurance is dropping and Americans are dying younger.

Sen. Bernie Sanders and other single-payer advocates say Medicare for All would cost the government far less — between $20 trillion and $36 trillion over a decade — by slashing overhead, eliminating out-of-pocket costs and empowering federal officials to bargain directly with hospitals and drugmakers. But the streamlined system would have to care for millions of currently uninsured people at a significant cost to taxpayers, and experts disagree whether it would actually save money in the long run.

Centrist Democrats are pushing narrower plans that would, among other things, expand tax credits for people just above the Obamacare subsidy threshold. Virtually no one is arguing for maintaining the status quo, but that’s precisely what could happen given that congressional gridlock has stymied even popular, and bipartisan, causes like halting surprise medical bills.

“It’s really hard to see anything breaking through, especially when the industry interests and the money they’re willing to spend on lobbying and campaign contributions is just mind-boggling,” said Sabrina Corlette, a researcher at Georgetown University’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms. “And, without question, we are on an unsustainable trajectory.”

With Medicare for All and its price tag likely to come up in the next Democratic debate Jan. 14 in Iowa, here are five of the costliest consequences of inaction:

National health spending keeps rising

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that nationwide health spending will hit $6 trillion a year by 2027 absent any changes in law. That would be nearly a fifth of the economy. In total, the United States is slated to spend about $52 trillion over the coming decade.

The cost drivers include hospitals, physician and clinical services and prescription drugs. Some local health systems have become monopolies that can largely set prices as they please — leading to higher premiums and more out-of-pocket spending for consumers.

“Even the biggest insurance plans are not big enough to bargain down the cost of services, and they don’t have an incentive to,” said Wendell Potter, a former Cigna executive-turned whistleblower and single-payer advocate.

An aging population is driving up Medicare spending, but the rising cost of private insurance is the biggest factor. A recent Kaiser Family Foundation analysis found per capita spending for private insurance grew by nearly 53 percent over the last decade, or more than double the hike in per capita Medicare spending.

More people will be uninsured

The Census Bureau reported in September that the number of Americans without insurance grew by 2 million people since 2017 — the first increase in nearly a decade. Even with a healthy economy and low unemployment, more than 27 million people weren’t covered at any point last year. That could grow to 35 million by 2029, per the Congressional Budget Office, under current law.

The number of people enrolling in the Obamacare marketplace has declined, and more people are dropping employer-sponsored insurance due to cost and other concerns.

Part of this is President Donald Trump’s doing — the administration has slashed efforts to push Obamacare enrollment and rolled back the massive marketing effort that the Obama administration rolled out for years.

There are also more than 400,000 additional uninsured children than just two years ago — and 4 million in all — and states that haven’t expanded Medicaid are seeing the biggest spikes.

“What we also miss in the debate is the number of people temporarily uninsured, who miss open enrollment, who are between jobs, who fall through the cracks,” said Adam Gaffney, a Harvard Medical School researcher and the president of Physicians for a National Health Program. “I see people all the time in my practice in that situation who don’t fill prescriptions and experience serious complications.”

Going without insurance hits patients and health care providers: Average hospital spending on care for the uninsured was $13 million in 2018 up roughly 3 percent annually since 2016.

Coverage will be skimpier

As the cost of health care has skyrocketed, insurance companies have squeezed patients, charging higher premiums, deductibles and co-pays, and creating narrow networks of providers and aggressively billing for out-of-network care.

Since 2009, the amount workers have had to pay for health insurance has increased 71 percent, while wages have only risen 26 percent over that time.

More than 80 percent of workers now have to pay a minimum amount out of pocket before insurance kicks in — and the amount of that deductible has doubled over the last 10 years, now standing at an average of $1,655, though many workers have to pay a lot more.

These costs are putting care out of reach for millions.

A new Gallup poll found that a full quarter of adults have put off treatment for a serious medical condition due to the cost — the highest since Gallup began asking the question three decades ago. A full third say they’ve delayed or deferred some kind of health care service over the past year. Another Gallup and West Help survey found that 34 million people know at least one friend or family member who died over the past five years after skipping treatment due to costs.

 

Needed drugs will become more out of reach

U.S. patients pay vastly more for prescription drugs than people in other developed countries and the disparity is set to grow. The United States spent $1,443 per person on prescription drugs in 2018, while other developed countries fell somewhere between $466 and $939.

In just five years, national spending on prescription drugs increased 25 percent, according to the Government Accountability Office, and CMS expects that increase to “accelerate” over the next several years.

Increasingly, patients are responding by forgoing their medications. Gallup found in November that nearly 23 percent of adults — roughly 58 million people — said they haven’t been able to “pay for needed medicine or drugs that a doctor prescribed” over the past year.

This widespread inability to take needed medication, a government-funded study found last year, is responsible for as much as 10 percent of hospital admissions. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that medication nonadherence accounts for somewhere between $100 and $300 billion in national health spending every year.

 

Americans will continue to get sicker and die younger

The cost of maintaining the status quo is evident not only in dollars but in human lives.

Life expectancy in the United States has declined over the last three years, even as other developed countries around the world saw improvements.

Though the United States spends nearly twice as much on health care as other high-income countries, there’s been a stark increase in mortality between the ages of 19 and 64, with drug overdoses, alcohol abuse, suicide and organ diseases driving the trend. It’s cut across race and gender with the worst effects felt in rural areas.

The opioid epidemic only accounts for a fraction of the problem. The National Research Council found that the United States has higher mortality rates from most major causes of death than 16 other high-income countries.

Researchers at USC estimate that if these trends continue, it would take the United States more than a century to reach the average life expectancy levels other countries hit in 2016.

 

 

Beyond the ACA: Healthcare legal fights to watch in 2020

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Antitrust, Cost Sharing Reduction Payments, Essential Health Benefits, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Individual Mandate, Out of Pocket Expenses, Preexisting Conditions, Price Transparency, Short Term Health Insurance, Skinny Health Plans, Supreme Court, Texas v. United States • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/beyond-the-aca-healthcare-legal-fights-to-watch-in-2020/569793/

All eyes were on the legal drama over the Affordable Care Act as 2019 drew to a close — and while that case remains a focus for this year — a lot more is also at stake.

Payers and providers are fiercely contesting a price transparency push from the Trump administration that would force privately negotiated rates out into the open. The administration is also being challenged over regulations regarding risk corridor payments to payers and the expansion of association health plans.

Antitrust concerns are also front and center, as payers clash over exclusive broker policies in Florida.

As policy debates rage on this year through presidential debates and on Capitol Hill, courthouses will also be a key battleground for the industry in 2020.  Below are the big cases to watch.

ACA and the high court

The most consequential case still making its way through the court system is the challenge to the Affordable Care Act. At the end of last year, an appeals court notched a win for the red states fighting the law by declaring the individual mandate was no longer constitutional after the penalty was zeroed out by a Republican-controlled Congress.

The three-judge panel, however, stopped short of declaring the entire ACA void, instead asking the lower court that made the argument that the rest of the law is not severable from the individual mandate to revisit and clarify its ruling.

Supporters of the ACA are trying to speed up what is almost certainly the next major step for the court case by petitioning the Supreme Court on Friday to hear the case before the November presidential election.

“States, health insurers, and millions of Americans rely on those provisions when making important — indeed, life-changing — decisions. The remand proceedings contemplated by the panel majority would only prolong and exacerbate the uncertainty already caused by this litigation,” according to the Jan. 3 petition filed by California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and a coalition of 19 other states and D.C.

Five justices are needed to approve the suggested expedited timeline while four are needed to agree to hear the case at all. More will be clear in the next couple of months as justices make their decisions. The ultimate decision — whether it comes in months or years — will have huge ramifications across the healthcare landscape.

Price transparency pushback

The legal clash between hospitals and the administration over forcing providers to reveal negotiated rates is set to heat up quickly in the new year.

The federal judge overseeing the case recently released a timeline for how it is expected to proceed in the coming months. Hospitals are seeking a swift ruling and summary judgment. HHS faces a Feb. 4 deadline to file its opposition motion to the summary judgment, while deadlines for motions extend through March 10.

“That is an extremely accelerated schedule,” James Burns, a partner at Akerman, told Healthcare Dive. “My strong suspicion is that we’ll get a ruling from the judge late spring or earlier summer at the latest, which is obviously all before the election.”

Hospital groups including the American Hospital Association and health systems have alleged that the administration’s push to force negotiated rates out into the open exceeds the government’s authority and violates the First Amendment because it compels hospitals to reveal confidential and proprietary information. Legal experts say the principal argument will center around whether the government exceeded its authority, not the First Amendment.

Risk corridor payments

On last month’s Supreme Court docket was a case regarding an ACA risk adjustment program. At issue are $12 billion in payments insurers say they are owed from losses on state exchanges.

Early participants in the marketplaces were hit hard in some cases as they attempted to adjust to people gaining coverage under the ACA. A few nonprofit co-ops were driven to close when CMS declared the program had to be budget neutral and therefore only about one-eighth of the expected risk corridor amount could be paid out.

A number of justices seemed to lean toward ruling in favor of the insurers during arguments in front of the high court, Tim Jost, health law expert and professor emeritus at Washington and Lee University School of Law, told Healthcare Dive​. “Only a couple of the justices that spoke seemed inclined to support the government, but we’ll see what happens there,” he said.

If the payers do prevail, there’s still the question of exactly how much they are owed and how the money will be distributed. It could ultimately affect medical loss ratio rebates or premiums down the road, he said.

CSR fight in court this week

The legal fight over canceled payments to insurers​ under the ACA drags on as oral arguments begin this week in a federal appeals court.

A number of insurers including Maine Community Health Options and Sanford Health claim they’re owed millions in cost-sharing reduction payments that the government failed to pay out after the Trump administration said Congress failed to appropriate the funds. The payments were intended to repay insurers for lowering the cost of care to make coverage affordable for those with low incomes.

Health Options and Sanford both won in the lower courts after judges ruled they were entitled to the unpaid CSR payments. The cases have been consolidated within the appeals court and oral arguments start Thursday.

A ruling in favor of insurers in the risk corridor case could be a good sign for their fight to be reimbursed for CSRs as well, Jost said.

Oscar antitrust argument

Health insurer Oscar has alleged that Blue Cross Blue Shield of Florida is enforcing a broker policy that is impeding Oscar’s ability to sell individual exchange plans and undermines competition in Florida.

The key question in this case is whether Florida Blue, a dominant insurer in the sunshine state, can lawfully bar independent brokers from working with other carriers like Oscar by threatening to cut off their ability to sell all other Florida Blue plans if they sell Oscar’s individual plans.

A lower court ruled against Oscar and found that such arrangements are shielded from antitrust scrutiny. A federal law excludes the “business of insurance” from antitrust scrutiny in some cases, legal experts say this case shouldn’t be exempt from antitrust enforcement.

A group of 10 antitrust scholars called the ruling “dangerous” and “plainly incorrect,” in an amicus brief Dec. 23 to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th District.

“The practice at issue here — forming exclusive deals with industry gatekeepers to box out potential entry by competitors — is a quotidian business strategy that appears across many industries and raises well-recognized antitrust concerns,” according to the amicus brief.

Oscar alleges that consumers are harmed if brokers are barred from discussing other plan options outside Florida Blue.

The Department of Justice also intends to file an amicus brief, according to a recent filing in the appeals case.

Association, short-term health plans

The federal court of appeals in D.C. heard arguments late last year to review a judge’s decision in March 2019 declaring association health plans an “end-run” around the ACA. AHPs are offered by business or professional associations and aren’t bound by ACA requirements protecting pre-existing conditions and mandating essential benefits.

U.S. District Judge John Bates had strong language in March for the Trump administration, which is being challenged for loosening restrictions on what groups can offer AHPs — and therefore expanding their presence in the marketplace.

The D.C. appeals court is expected to rule on the case in the coming months. Jost’s take from the oral arguments is that the court seem inclined to reverse Bates’ decision, though he warned the outcome is not certain. “It’s a technical case that really has more to do with interpreting ERISA than the Affordable Care Act, though both are relevant,” he said.

A similar challenge has risen on short-term health plans, which were originally meant as stopgap coverage but have been expanded by the Trump administration to offer up to three years worth of coverage.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon ruled in favor of the administration in July, saying the plans did not undermine the ACA. The plaintiffs, including the Association for Community Affiliated Plans, the National Alliance on Mental Illness and AIDS United, quickly appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C.

Briefs are due this month and argument is likely in the spring, Jost said.

If AHPs and short-term plans are allowed to continue as the Trump administration has pushed for, it presents a concern for the viability of ACA risk pools. Consumer warnings against short-term plans, however, may be working, he said.

“There’s been a lot of publicity about how risky these plans are and I think they probably have not been achieving the same market strength they were hoping for,” he said.

 

 

 

Supreme Court says ACA opponents have until Friday to respond to motion to expedite

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Health Policy, Individual Mandate, Supreme Court, Texas v. United States • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/blue-states-ask-supreme-court-to-weigh-aca-case-ahead-of-2020-election/569788/

UPDATE: Jan. 7, 2019: The Supreme Court on Monday set a Friday afternoon deadline for challengers of the ACA to respond to the blue state coalition’s motion to expedite the case.

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and a coalition of 19 other states and D.C. on Friday asked the Supreme Court to hear the case seeking to overturn the Affordable Care Act, following an appeals court ruling that a key element of the law is unconstitutional.   

The ruling warrants an immediate and expedited review, the group said in its petition filed to the Supreme Court. The coalition laid out an aggressive timeline, in an effort to get an answer on the case before the November 2020 presidential election.

Although the court is made of nine justices, five of whom lean conservative, just four justices are needed to agree to hear the case. However, five are needed to approve the expedited timeline, according to University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley.

The landmark Affordable Care Act drastically altered the healthcare industry and ushered in insurance coverage for millions of Americans. Its provisions regulate a substantial portion of the nation’s economy and any further delay in a final outcome stokes uncertainty, the petition argues.

“States, health insurers, and millions of Americans rely on those provisions when making important — indeed, life-changing — decisions. The remand proceedings contemplated by the panel majority would only prolong and exacerbate the uncertainty already caused by this litigation,” the petition states.

Rob Henneke, the attorney representing the two individual plaintiffs in this case, said the push for a Supreme Court review this fast is unreasonable and unrealistic. “This is more influenced by the political calendar now that we are in 2020 than a valid litigation strategy,” he told Healthcare Dive.

The closely-watched case has fueled jitters in healthcare markets as the litigation has made its way through the courts.

A federal appeals court recently affirmed part of a lower court’s ruling that found the individual mandate is unconstitutional because it no longer has a financial penalty attached. The lower court went one step further and found that because the mandate is unconstitutional, so too is the entire law. The Texas-led coalition of Republican states seeking to overturn the law has argued that when Congress zeroed out the financial penalty associated with forgoing insurance, it invalidated the entire law.

This group of red states and two individual plaintiffs argue that the law cannot stand on its own without the individual mandate and that the entirety of the law must be struck down. That mandate’s financial penalty was nixed in a subsequent tax bill.

“The individual mandate is unconstitutional because it can no longer be read as a tax,” the majority wrote in the federal appeals court ruling. But on the key question of whether the rest of the law can stand, the majority sent that back to the lower court to provide more detailed analysis on what can stay or go.

The blue states intervened to defend the ACA after the Trump administration’s DOJ waffled on its position and is not actively defending to uphold the law throughout the country.

 

 

 

Pros and Cons of Different Public Health Insurance Options

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Market Failure, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Medicare, Medicare for All, Out of Pocket Expenses, Out-of-Network, Single Payer Health System, Single Payer Healthcare System, Surprise Bills • 1 Comment

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/journal-article/2018/nov/pros-cons-public-options-2020-democratic

Image result for Pros and Cons of Different Public Health Insurance Options

Options for Expanding Health Care Coverage

It is more than likely that Democratic candidates for the 2020 presidential election will propose some type of public health insurance plan. In one of two Commonwealth Fund–supported articles in Health Affairs discussing potential Democratic and Republican health care plans for the 2020 election, national health policy experts Sherry Glied and Jeanne Lambrew assess the potential impact and trade-offs of three approaches:

 

  • Incorporating public-plan elements into private plans through mechanisms such as limits on profits, additional rules on how insurers operate, or the use of Medicare payment rates.
  • Offering a public plan — some version of Medicare or Medicaid, for example — alongside private plans. Such a plan could be offered to specific age groups, like adults 50 to 64 who are not yet eligible for Medicare, to enrollees in the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) marketplaces, or to everyone under 65, including those working for self-insured employers. It also could be made available in regions of the country where there is little health care competition.
  • Replacing the current health care financing system with a “Medicare for all” single-payer system administered by the federal government. Some single-payer proposals would allow consumers to purchase supplementary private insurance to help pay for uncovered services.

 

Issues for Consideration in 2020

The authors find trade-offs in each type of public plan. First, a single-payer system would significantly increase the federal budget and require new taxes, a politically challenging prospect. On the other hand, federal spending might decrease if a public plan were added to the marketplace or if public elements were added to private plans. In 2013, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that a public plan, following the same rules as private plans, would reduce federal spending by $158 billion over 10 years, while offering premiums 7 percent to 8 percent lower than private plans. A single-payer approach would lower administrative costs and profits, and likely reduce health care prices as well. By assuming control over the financing of health care, the federal government could reduce administrative complexity and fragmentation. On the flip side, the more than 175 million Americans who are privately insured would need to change insurance plans.

 

A public–private choice model would help ensure that an affordable health plan option is available to Americans. While politically appealing, this option presents implementation challenges: covered benefits, payment rates, and risk-adjustments all need to be carefully managed to ensure a fair but competitive marketplace. A targeted choice option might be adopted by candidates interested in strengthening the ACA marketplaces in specific regions or for specific groups (as with the Medicare at 55 Act). It would benefit Americans whose current access to affordable coverage is limited, but the same technical challenges associated with a more comprehensive choice model would apply.

 

Finally, to lower prices for privately insured individuals, public plan tools such as deployment of Medicare-based rates could be applied to private insurance, either across the board or specifically for high-cost claims, prescription drugs, or other services. The major challenge here is setting prices that would appropriately compensate providers.

 

The Big Picture

Under the ACA, the percentage of Americans who had health insurance had reached an all-time high (91 percent) in 2016, an all-time high, and preexisting health conditions ceased to be an obstacle to affordable insurance. But Americans remain concerned about high out-of-pocket spending and access to providers, and fears over losing preexisting-condition protections have grown. While most Democratic presidential candidates will likely defend the ACA and seek to strengthen it, most recognize that fortifying the law will not be enough to cover the remaining uninsured, rein in rising spending, and make health care more affordable.

 

While the health reform proposals of Democratic candidates in 2020 will likely differ dramatically from those of Republican candidates, recent grassroots support for the ACA’s preexisting condition clause may indicate a willingness by both political parties to support additional government intervention in private insurance markets.

 

 

 

The biggest health care issues of the 2020 election

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Cost Management, Cost Reduction, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Texas v. United States • Leave a comment

https://www.brookings.edu/podcast-episode/biggest-health-care-issues-of-2020-election/

Image result for brookings cafeteria

Polls show that health care is one of the top issues American voters care about, but ideas about controlling costs and expanding coverage are divided along partisan lines.

This episode features a deep dive into health care policy and what Democratic presidential candidates and Republican Party leaders are offering as their solutions. Guests are two of Brookings’s top health policy experts: Christen Linke Young is a fellow in the USC-Brookings Schaeffer Initiative for Health policy and, among her many roles in public service, served in the White House as a senior policy advisor for health.

Matthew Fiedler is also a fellow with the Schaeffer Initiative and was previously chief economist of the Council of Economic Advisers in the White House, where he oversaw the council’s work on health care policy. Both Young and Fiedler have contributed a few explainer pieces on health policy as part of the Policy 2020 project here at Brookings.

Also, meet Annelies Goger, a new David M. Rubenstein Fellow in the Metropolitan Policy program at Brookings.

Click to access BrookingsCafeteria_FiedlerLinkeYoung-TRANSCRIPT.pdf

 

 

 

Five health care fights to watch in 2020

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Health Insurance Industry, Health Policy, High Drug Prices, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Medicare, Medicare for All, Preexisting Conditions, Surprise Bills • Leave a comment

Five health care fights to watch in 2020

Image result for 2020 healthcare issues

Advocates hope lawmakers can beat the odds and move major health care legislation in the new year.

2019 opened with bipartisan talk of cracking down on drug prices and surprise medical bills. But it ended without major legislation signed into law on either front, and a host of other health care battles, including a lawsuit threatening the entire Affordable Care Act, looming over the coming election year.

Here are five health care fights to watch in 2020. 

 

Drug pricing

Lowering drug prices was supposed to be an area for potential bipartisan action in 2019, but the effort ran into a brick wall of industry lobbying and partisan divisions. 

There is a push to finally get legislation over the finish line in 2020, though.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is calling for attaching drug pricing legislation to a package of expiring health care programs, like community health center funding, that must be renewed by May 22. She hopes the pressure from that deadline helps carry a larger package, but that is far from certain, especially as the election gets closer.

Democrats point to President Trump’s vow to support allowing the government to negotiate drug prices during his 2016 campaign. While Trump backed off that pledge this year, they hold out hope he might come back around. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is also strongly opposed to the idea, and has concerns about a more modest bill from Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) that could provide a more realistic bipartisan path.

“The president said when he ran and until relatively recently that he would support negotiated prices and I expect at some point he will go back to that, and we’re just going to keep pushing the Senate to try to achieve that,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.).

 

Surprise billing

The other major health care initiative that Pelosi says she wants in the May package is protecting patients from surprise medical bills.

That effort has also fallen prey to intense industry lobbying and congressional infighting. 

Backers of a bipartisan bill from the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Senate Health Committee on the issue pushed for including the measure in a year-end spending and were deeply frustrated when it was left out.

A key factor was House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.) putting forward the outline of a rival plan days before this month’s funding deadline, showing a split on the way forward.

“It’s certainly going to be harder [next year],” said Shawn Gremminger, senior director of federal relations at Families USA, a liberal health care advocacy group.

“You are now under six months out from the general election,” he said about moving legislation in May 2020.

Backers have a tough road ahead. They will have to bridge the divide between the competing plans and overcome lobbying from powerful doctor and hospital groups, who worry the legislation could lead to damaging cuts to their payments.

 

ObamaCare

Outside of Capitol Hill negotiating rooms, the GOP lawsuit to overturn the Affordable Care Act is looming large. 

A federal appeals court last week issued a long-awaited ruling on the fate of the law, though it did little to settle the issue. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law’s mandate to have health insurance is unconstitutional, but punted on the question of whether any of the rest of the law should also be struck down, instead sending it back to the lower court.

The most tangible effect of the move could be to push a final Supreme Court decision on the fate of the law past the 2020 elections, though it’s possible the justices could still choose to take the case sooner.

Democrats intend to hammer Republicans over the lawsuit during next year’s campaign, though, a strategy that paid off for the party during the 2018 midterms when they focused on health care. 

The Democratic group Protect Our Care launched a national TV ad on Friday, saying “President Trump and Republicans just won a major decision in their lawsuit to repeal health care from millions of American families,” and warning of the loss of pre-existing condition protections.

 

Medicare for All 

In the Democratic presidential race, “Medicare for All” is a central dividing line.

How the issue plays out in 2020 will depend in large part on who wins the Democratic nomination. If progressives like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) or Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) win the nomination, Republicans will be able to go full bore on their attacks that private health insurance would be eliminated under the proposal.

Even more moderate candidates like former Vice President Joe Biden and South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg PETER (PETE) PAUL BUTTIGIEGPoll: Biden remains ahead of Sanders by 10 points2020 predictions: Trump will lose — if not in the Senate, then with the votersButtigieg’s former chief of staff to be sworn in as mayoral successorMORE would face attacks that their public option plans are a step down the road toward eventually implementing full-scale single payer.

The internal debate on the issue has faded somewhat from its peak. Health care has not featured as prominently in the last two debates, and some of the fighting has shifted to other areas, like candidates’ fundraising practices.

But the issue is still simmering and could burst back to open warfare among Democrats at any point.

 

Vaping

The battle over e-cigarette flavors will likely resume in 2020 as the Trump administration and Congress try to cut rising youth vaping rates.

Public health advocates are pushing the administration to clear the market of flavors like mint and fruit that they argue are fueling a youth vaping epidemic.

Trump said he would eliminate those flavors in September, but has appeared to back down after backlash from vaping advocates and the e-cigarette industry.

Now he says he would like to find a compromise that preserves such flavors for adults while keeping them away from kids.

Advocates like the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids plan to pressure Trump to follow through on his word, though it’s looking unlikely.

However, the e-cigarette market could also look vastly different after May 2020, when companies must apply to the Food and Drug Administration to stay on the market

The industry must prove its products benefit public health, a big ask for companies like Juul, whose products are favored by kids who vape.

House Democrats also plan to vote on a bill that would ban flavored e-cigarette and tobacco products, but it’s not clear if it will get a vote in the Senate.

 

2019 WAS A ROUGH YEAR FOR RURAL HOSPITALS

Posted on by • Posted in Abandoned Hospitals, ACA, Bankruptcy, Health Policy, Hospital, Hospital Bankruptcy, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Mortality, Primary Care, Rural Health, Rural Hospital, Womens Health • Leave a comment

https://www.healthleadersmedia.com/clinical-care/2019-was-rough-year-rural-hospitals?spMailingID=16767558&spUserID=MTg2ODM1MDE3NTU1S0&spJobID=1781791709&spReportId=MTc4MTc5MTcwOQS2

Since 2005, 162 rural hospitals have shuttered, with 60% of the closures occurring in southern states that did not expand Medicaid enrollment.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

19 rural hospitals closed in 2019, up from 15 closures in 2018, and continuing a steady double-digit trend in closures since 2013.

Most hospitals closed because of financial problem, and 38% of rural hospitals are unprofitable.

Patients in communities affected by closure travel 12.5 miles on average for care. However, 43% of the closed hospitals are more than 15 miles to the nearest hospital, and 15% are more than 20 miles.

Despite a booming national economy, 2019 was the worst year for hospital closings since at least 2005.

The North Carolina Rural Health Research Program says that 19 rural hospitals closed this year, up from 15 closures in 2018, and continuing a steady double-digit trend in closures since 2013.

Since 2005, the North Carolina researchers tracked 162 hospital closings, with 60% of the closures occurring in southern states that did not expand Medicaid enrollment.

Texas led the way, with 23 hospital closures since 2005, followed by Tennessee with 13, and North Carolina with 11.

The closures have been blamed on a number of factors, including: the older, sicker, poorer, and less-concentrated rural demographic; bypassing by local residents seeking care at regional hospitals; hospital consolidation; value-based care; referral patterns of larger hospitals; the transition to outpatient services; and mismanagement.

Among the findings highlighted by the North Carolina Rural Health Research Program:

  • More than half of the rural hospitals that close cease to provide any type of health care, which were define as abandoned.
  • Most closures and “abandoned” rural hospitals are in South (60%), where poverty rates are higher, people are generally less healthy and less likely to have public or private health insurance.
  • Most hospitals closed because of financial problems. 38% of rural hospitals are unprofitable.
  • In 2016, 1,375 acute care hospitals out of 4,471 urban and rural acute care hospitals (31%) were unprofitable, including 847 rural hospitals (versus 528 unprofitable urban hospitals).
  • Patients in communities affected by closure travel 12.5 miles on average for care. However, 43% of the closed hospitals are more than 15 miles to the nearest hospital, and 15% are more than 20 miles.
  • The typical rural hospital employs about 300 people, serves a community of about 60,000. When the only hospital in a county closes, there is a decrease of about $1,400 in per capita income in the county.
  • University of Minnesota research shows that between 2004 and 2014, 179 rural counties lost all hospital-based OB services.
  • Over the last 15 years, the difference in mortality between rural and urban areas has tripled – from a 6% difference to an 18% difference in 2015.

 

 

 

Health Care in 2019: Year in Review

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Consumerism, Data Control, Data Management, Data Ownership, Data Privacy, Data Sharing, Disruption, Disruptive Technology, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, Lawsuit, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Out of Pocket Expenses, Private Equity, Single Payer Health System, Single Payer Healthcare System, Supreme Court, Surprise Bills, Texas v. United States, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2019/health-care-2019-year-review

Health care was front and center for policymakers and the American public in 2019. An appeals court delivered a decision on the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA’s) individual mandate. In the Democratic primaries, almost all the presidential candidates talked about health reform — some seeking to build on the ACA, others proposing to radically transform the health system. While the ACA remains the law of the land, the current administration continues to take executive actions that erode coverage and other gains. In Congress, we witnessed much legislative activity around surprise bills and drug costs. Meanwhile, far from Washington, D.C., the tech giants in Silicon Valley are crashing the health care party with promised digital transformations. If you missed any of these big developments, here’s a short overview.

 

1. A decision from appeals court on the future of the ACA: On December 18, an appeals court struck down the ACA’s individual mandate in Texas v. United States, a suit brought by Texas and 17 other states. The court did not rule on the constitutionality of the ACA in its entirety, but sent it back to a lower court. Last December, that court ruled the ACA unconstitutional based on Congress repealing the financial penalty associated with the mandate. The case will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, but the timing of the SCOTUS ruling is uncertain, leaving the future of the ACA hanging in the balance once again.

 

2. Democratic candidates propose health reform options: From a set of incremental improvements to the ACA to a single-payer plan like Medicare for All, every Democratic candidate who is serious about running for president has something to say about health care. Although these plans vary widely, they all expand the number of Americans with health insurance, and some manage to reduce health spending at the same time.

 

3. Rise in uninsured: Gains in coverage under the ACA appear to be stalling. In 2018, an estimated 30.4 million people were uninsured, up from a low of 28.6 million in 2016, according to a recent Commonwealth Fund survey. Nearly half of uninsured adults may have been eligible for subsidized insurance through ACA marketplaces or their state’s expanded Medicaid programs.

 

4. Changes to Medicaid: States continue to look for ways to alter their Medicaid programs, some seeking to impose requirements for people to work or participate in other qualifying activities to receive coverage. In Arkansas, the only state to implement work requirements, more than 17,000 people lost their Medicaid coverage in just three months. A federal judge has halted the program in Arkansas. Other states are still applying for waivers; none are currently implementing work requirements.

 

5. Public charge rule: The administration’s public charge rule, which deems legal immigrants who are not yet citizens as “public charges” if they receive government assistance, is discouraging some legal immigrants from using public services like Medicaid. The rule impacts not only immigrants, but their children or other family members who may be citizens. DHS estimated that 77,000 could lose Medicaid or choose not to enroll. The public charge rule may be contributing to a dramatic recent increase in the number of uninsured children in the U.S.

 

6. Open enrollment numbers: As of the seventh week of open enrollment, 8.3 million people bought health insurance for 2020 on HealthCare.gov, the federal marketplace. Taking into account that Nevada transitioned to a state-based exchange, and Maine and Virginia expanded Medicaid, this is roughly equivalent to 2019 enrollment. In spite of the Trump administration’s support of alternative health plans, like short-term plans with limited coverage, more new people signed up for coverage in 2020 than in the previous year. As we await final numbers — which will be released in March — it is also worth noting that enrollment was extended until December 18 because consumers experienced issues on the website. In addition, state-based marketplaces have not yet reported; many have longer enrollment periods than the federal marketplace.

 

7. Outrage over surprise bills: Public outrage swelled this year over unexpected medical bills, which may occur when a patient is treated by an out-of-network provider at an in-network facility. These bills can run into tens of thousands of dollars, causing crippling financial problems. Congress is searching for a bipartisan solution but negotiations have been complicated by fierce lobbying from stakeholders, including private equity companies. These firms have bought up undersupplied specialty physician practices and come to rely on surprise bills to swell their revenues.

 

8. Employer health care coverage becomes more expensive: Roughly half the U.S. population gets health coverage through their employers. While employers and employees share the cost of this coverage, the average annual growth in the combined cost of employees’ contributions to premiums and their deductibles outpaced growth in U.S. median income between 2008 and 2018 in every state. This is because employers are passing along a larger proportion to employees, which means that people are incurring higher out-of-pocket expenses. Sluggish wage growth has also exacerbated the problem.

 

9. Tech companies continue inroads into health care: We are at the dawn of a new era in which technology companies may become critical players in the health care system. The management and use of health data to add value to common health care services is a prime example. Recently, Ascension, a huge national health system, reached an agreement with Google to store clinical data on 50 million patients in the tech giant’s cloud. But the devil is in the details, and tech companies and their provider clients are finding themselves enmeshed in a fierce debate over privacy, ownership, and control of health data.

 

10. House passes drug-cost legislation: For the first time, the U.S. House of Representatives passed comprehensive drug-cost-control legislation, H.R. 3. Reflecting the public’s distress over high drug prices, the legislation would require that the government negotiate the price of up to 250 prescription drugs in Medicare, limit drug manufacturers’ ability to annually hike prices in Medicare, and place the first-ever cap on out-of-pocket drug costs for Medicare beneficiaries. This development is historic but unlikely to result in immediate change. Its prospects in the Republican–controlled Senate are dim.

 

 

 

Christmas comes early for healthcare industry groups

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Health Policy, High Drug Prices, Surprise Bills • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/f3434dd2ba5d/the-weekly-gist-december-20-2019?e=d1e747d2d8

Image result for Christmas comes early for healthcare industry groups

Today, President Trump is set to sign into law a $1.4T spending agreement that keeps the Federal government open and avoids a year-end budget showdown with Congress. The agreement is comprised of two separate spending packages, with a total of 12 budget bills, and includes good news for almost every segment of the healthcare industry.

It repeals the long-debated “Cadillac Tax” on high-cost health plans, which was a key funding mechanism for the ACA and was intended to force employers to encourage their employees to use healthcare services more frugally.

It also repeals the “device tax” on medical device manufacturers, and the separate fee on health insurers, both also part of the ACA.

In sum, those three repeals will reduce tax revenue by about $375B over the next decade and will remove a substantial portion of funding originally earmarked to sustain the 2010 health law.

Meanwhile, notably absent from the budget deal are measures to address surprise billing, which have proven difficult to finalize despite broad bipartisan support, and steps to reduce the cost of prescription drugs, a key legislative priority on both sides of the aisle.

Thanks to intense lobbying by various industry interest groups, and the toxic political environment in Washington, the year is drawing to an end with virtually no progress to show on either front.

As a result, despite a year’s worth of heated rhetoric about the high cost of care, the burden of health spending on individuals, and the need to rein in runaway health spending, 2019 is ending with almost every industry interest—pharmaceutical companies, device manufacturers, insurers, physician groups, and hospitals—largely avoiding accountability in the form of federal legislation. As we head into an election year, we’ll likely have to wait until after next November to see real progress on any of these issues. Merry Christmas.