Category Archives: Essential Health Benefits

How Much Would Trump’s Coronavirus Treatment Cost Most Americans?

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Health Benefits, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Preexisting Conditions, Short Term Health Insurance, Skinny Health Plans, Supreme Court, Surprise Bills, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://news.yahoo.com/much-trumps-coronavirus-treatment-cost-130318676.html

President Donald Trump's physician, Dr. Sean Conley, accompanied by other medical staff members, briefing reporters outside of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda Md., on Oct. 4, 2020. (Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times)

President Donald Trump spent three days in the hospital. He arrived and left by helicopter. And he received multiple coronavirus tests, oxygen, steroids and an experimental antibody treatment.

For someone who isn’t president, that would cost more than $100,000 in the American health system. Patients could face significant surprise bills and medical debt even after health insurance paid its share.

The biggest financial risks would come not from the hospital stay but from the services provided elsewhere, including helicopter transit and repeated coronavirus testing.

Trump has praised the high quality of care he received at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and has played down the risk of the virus. “Don’t be afraid of Covid,” Trump tweeted on Monday, before returning to the White House. “Don’t let it dominate your life.”

Across the country, patients have struggled with both the long-term health and financial effects of contracting coronavirus. Nearly half a million have been hospitalized. Routine tests can result in thousands of dollars in uncovered charges; hospitalized patients have received bills upward of $400,000.

Trump did not have to worry about the costs of his care, which are covered by the federal government. Most Americans, including many who carry health coverage, do worry about receiving medical care they cannot afford.

For some Americans, the bills could start mounting with frequent tests. Insurers are generally required to pay for those tests when physicians order them, but not when employers do.

The Trump administration made that clear in June, when it issued guidance stating that insurers do not have to pay for “testing conducted to screen for general workplace health and safety.” Instead, patients need to pay for that type of testing themselves. Some might be able to get free tests at public sites, and some employers may voluntarily cover the costs. Others could face significant medical debt from tests delivered at hospitals or urgent care centers.

COVID tests can be expensive. Although they typically cost $100, one emergency room in Texas has charged as much as $6,408 for a drive-through test. About 2.4% of coronavirus tests billed to insurers leave the patient responsible for some portion of payment, according to the health data firm Castlight. With 108 million tests performed in the United States, that could amount to millions of tests that leave patients responsible for some share of the cost.

Marta Bartan, who works as a hair colorist in New York City, needed a coronavirus test to return to her job this summer. She received a $1,394 bill from the hospital running the drive-through site where she was tested.

“I was so confused,” said Bartan, who is contesting the bill. “You go in to get a COVID test expecting it to be free. What could they have possibly charged me $1,400 for?”

The bills for the typical American would continue at the hospital, with the routine monitoring that any patient would receive and the drugs provided in the course of care.

Remdesivir, a new coronavirus treatment created by Gilead, costs $3,120 when purchased by private insurers and $2,340 with public programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Trump also received an experimental antibody treatment from Regeneron. It’s currently available to clinical trial participants or to those granted a “compassionate use” exemption. In either situation, the drug would typically be provided to the patient at no charge. This will most likely change, however, when the treatment finishes trials and hits the commercial market. These types of drugs are hard to manufacture, and other monoclonal antibodies cost thousands of dollars.

Health economists are only starting to understand the full costs of coronavirus treatment, just as scientists are mapping out how the disease works and spreads. They do have some early estimates: The median charge for a coronavirus hospitalization for a patient over 60 is $61,912, according to a claims database, FAIR Health

That figure includes any medical care during the hospital stay, such as an emergency room visit that led to admission or drugs provided by the hospital.

For insured patients, that price would typically be negotiated lower by their health plan. FAIR Health estimates that the median amount paid is $31,575. That amount, like most things in American health care, varies significantly from one patient to another.

In the FAIR Health data on coronavirus patients over 60, one-quarter face charges less than $26,821 for their hospital stay. Another quarter face charges higher than $193,149, in part because of longer stays.

Many, but not all, health insurers have said they will not apply copayments or deductibles to patients’ coronavirus hospital stays, which could help shield patients from large bills.

Uninsured patients, however, could be stuck with the entire hospital charges and not receive any discounts. While the Trump administration did set up a fund to cover coronavirus testing and treatment costs for the uninsured, The New York Times has reported that some Americans without health insurance have received large bills for their hospital stays.

The biggest billing risk for a patient receiving treatment similar to Trump’s would probably come from helicopter rides to the hospital.

Air ambulances are expensive and often not in major health insurance plans’ networks. The median charge for an air ambulance is $38,770, according to a study in the journal Health Affairs published this year. When the helicopter trip is out of network — as about three-quarters of them are — patients are left with a median charge of $21,698 after the insurance payout.

Taking two helicopter rides, as Trump did, could plausibly result in more than $40,000 in medical debt for patients without access to their own aircraft (though of course most people do not leave the hospital by helicopter).

The financial consequences of a coronavirus hospitalization could be long-lasting, if a new Supreme Court challenge to the Affordable Care Act is successful. That case argues that all of Obamacare is unconstitutional, including the health law’s protections for preexisting conditions. The administration filed a brief in June supporting the challenge.

The Supreme Court hears that case on Nov. 10. If the challenge succeeds, COVID-19 could join a long list of preexisting conditions that would leave patients facing higher premiums or denials of coverage. In that case, coronavirus survivors could face a future in which their hospital stays increase their health costs for years to come.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Election 2020: Trump and Biden’s starkly diverging views on healthcare

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Antitrust, Clinical Testing, Competition, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Essential Health Benefits, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Executive Orders, Federal Trade Commission (FTC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Health System, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Medicaid, Medicaid Block Grants, Medicaid Expansion, Medicaid Work Requirements, Medicare, Medicare for All, Medicare Site Neutral Payment, Mergers & Acquisitions, Monopoly, Monopoly Behavior, Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Pharmaceutical Industry, Preexisting Conditions, Public Option, Scientists, Short Term Health Insurance, Skinny Health Plans, Supreme Court, Surprise Bills, Underinsured, Uninsured, World Health Organization (WHO) • Leave a comment

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Spoiler: the 2 nominees differ on almost everything.

President Donald Trump and Democrat nominee Joe Biden’s starkly contrasting views on healthcare were laid bare during this week’s chaotic debate. But some major industry executives noted at a recent conference they’ve done relatively well under Trump and could likely weather a Biden presidency, given his moderate stance and rejection of liberal dreams of “Medicare for All.”

The former vice president stresses incremental measures to shore up President Barack Obama’s landmark Affordable Care Act. Trump’s campaign website has no list of healthcare priorities, making his record even more relevant to attempts to forecast his future policies.

“I think a lot of the president’s second term agenda will be extensions of things he’s done in his first term,” Lanhee Chen, domestic policy director at Stanford University’s Public Policy program, said at AHIP in September.

Either way, the impact of whoever lands in the White House next year still matters for the industry’s future.

And 33 seats in the Senate are also up for grabs in November, complicating the outlook. Two scenarios would likely lead to health policy gridlock, according to analysts and DC experts: Trump wins regardless of Senate outcome, or Biden wins and Republicans maintain control of the Senate. A third scenario, where Biden wins and Democrats retake the Senate, would be the most negative for healthcare stocks, Jefferies analysts say, while the other two outcomes would be a net positive or mostly neutral.

Here’s a look at where the candidates stand on the biggest healthcare issues: the coronavirus pandemic, the Affordable Care Act, changes to Medicare and Medicaid and lowering skyrocketing healthcare costs.

COVID-19 response

Trump

Of all wealthy nations, the U.S. has been particularly unsuccessful in mitigating the pandemic. The U.S. makes up 4% of the global population, but accounted for 23% of all COVID-19 cases and 21% of all deaths as of early September.

Public health experts assign the majority of the blame to an uncoordinated federal response, with the president electing to take a largely hands-off approach to the virus that’s killed nearly 207,000 people in the U.S. to date. That backseat stance is unlikely to change if Trump is elected to a second term.

In March, Trump said a final COVID-19 death toll in the range of 100,000 to 200,000 Americans would mean he’s “done a very good job.”

Critics blame shortages of supplies like test materials, personal protective equipment and ventilators, especially in the crucial early days of the pandemic, on Trump’s approach. States and healthcare companies have also reported challenges with shifting federal guidelines on topics from risk of infection to hospital requirements for reporting COVID-19 caseloads.

Trump has also pushed unproven treatments for COVID-19, giving rise to concerns about political influence on traditionally nonpartisan agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

These concerns have colored Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s public-private partnership to fast-track viable vaccines. The operation received $10 billion in funds from Congress, but administration officials have also pulled $700 million from the CDC, even as top health officials face accusations of trying to manipulate CDC scientific research publications.

Fears that political motivations, not clinical rigor, are driving the historically speedy timeline could lower public trust in a vaccine once it’s eventually approved.

Trump has also repeatedly refused to endorse basic protections like widespread mask wearing, often eschewing the face covering himself in public appearances. He’s consistently downplayed the severity of the pandemic, saying it’ll go away on its own while suggesting falsely that rising COVID-19 cases were solely due to increased testing.

While Trump’s list of priorities for his second term include “eradicating COVID-19,” the plan is short on details. His most aggressive promise has been approval of a vaccine by the end of this year and creating all “critical medicines and supplies for healthcare workers” for a planned return to normal in 2021, along with refilling stockpiles to prepare for future pandemics.

Biden

Biden, for his part, would likely work to enact COVID-19 legislation and dramatically change the role of the federal government in pandemic response first thing if elected.

The Democratic candidate says he would re-assume primary responsibility for the pandemic. He plans to “dramatically scale up testing” and “giving states and local governments the resources they need to open schools and businesses safely,” per an August speech in Wilmington, Delaware.

Biden says he’d take a backseat to scientists and allow FDA to unilaterally make decisions on emergency authorizations and approvals.

The candidate supports reopening an ACA enrollment period for the uninsured, eliminating out-of-pocket costs for COVID-19 treatment, enacting additional pay and protective equipment for essential workers, increasing the federal match rate for Medicaid by at least 10%, covering COBRA with 100% premium subsidies during the emergency, expanding unemployment insurance and sick leave, reimbursing employers for sick leave and giving them tax credits for COVID-19 healthcare costs.

Trump opposes most of these measures, though he did sign COVID-19 relief legislation that upped the Medicaid match rate by 6.2% and extended the COBRA election period, though without subsidies.

Biden has said he’d be willing to use executive power for a national mask mandate, though ensuring compliance would be difficult. He’d also rejoin the World Health Organization, which Trump pulled the U.S. out of in May.

Affordable Care Act

Trump

On his first day in office, Trump issued an executive order saying: “It is the policy of my Administration to seek the prompt repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” But after the Republican repeal-and-replace effort floundered in 2017, the administration began steadily chipping away at key tenets of the decade-old law through regulatory avenues.

Trump has maintained he’ll protect the 150 million people with preexisting conditions in the U.S. But despite publicly promising a comprehensive replacement plan on the 2015 campaign trail (and at least five times this year alone), Trump has yet to make one public. The president did in September sign a largely symbolic executive order that it’s the stance of his administration to protect patients with preexisting conditions.

The president doesn’t mention the ACA in his list of second term priorities. The omission could have been intentional, as Trump is backing a Republican state-led lawsuit seeking to overturn the sweeping law, now pending in front of the U.S. Supreme Court and scheduled for oral arguments one week after the election.

The death of liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg puts the law in an even more precarious position.

And Trump’s health agencies have enacted myriad policies keeping the law from functioning as designed.

The president signed legislation zeroing out the individual mandate penalty requiring people to be insured in 2017. The same year, he ended cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers, suggesting that would cause the ACA to become “dead.” But the marketplace generally stabilized.

The administration has also increased access to skimpier but cheaper coverage that doesn’t have to comply with the 10 essential health benefits under the ACA. The short-term insurance plans widely discriminate against people with pre-existing health conditions, even as a growing number of Americans, facing rising healthcare costs, enrolled, according to a probe conducted by House Democrats this year.

Trump has also encouraged state waivers that promote non-ACA plans, cut funding for consumer enrollment assistance and outreach, shortened the open enrollment period and limited mid-year special enrollments.

​Despite his efforts, the ACA has grown in popularity among voters on both sides of the aisle, mostly due to provisions like shoring up pre-existing conditions and allowing young adults to stay on their parent’s insurance until age 26.

Biden

If elected, Biden would likely roll back Trump-era policies that allowed short-term insurance to proliferate, and restore funding for consumer outreach and assistance, political consultants say.

Building on the law is the linchpin of Biden’s healthcare plan. The nominee has pledged to increase marketplace subsidies to help more people afford ACA plans through a number of policy tweaks, including lowering the share of income subsidized households pay for their coverage; determining subsidies by setting the benchmark plan at the pricier “gold” level; and removing the current cap limiting subsidies to people making 400% of the federal poverty level or below.

Biden maintains as a result of these changes, no Americans would have to pay more than 8.5% of their annual income toward premiums. They could save millions of people hundreds of dollars a month, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis. Commercial payers mostly support these efforts, hoping they’ll stabilize the exchanges.

But a second prong of Biden’s health strategy is deeply unpopular with private insurers: the public option. Biden’s called for a Medicare-like alternative to commercial coverage, available to anyone, including people who can’t afford private coverage or those living in a state that hasn’t expanded Medicaid.

The rationale of the public plan is that it can directly negotiate prices with hospitals and other providers, lowering costs across the board. However, market clout will depend on enrollment, which is still to-be-determined.

Critics see the plan, which by Biden’s estimate would cost $750 billion over 10 years, as a down payment on Medicare for All. And the private sector worries it could threaten the very profitable healthcare industry, which makes up about a fifth of the U.S. economy.

Medicare

Trump

Neither Trump nor Biden supports Medicare for All, dashing the hopes of supporters of the sweeping insurance scheme for at least another four years.

“It has a pulse — it’s not dead — I just don’t see it happening in any near term,” John Cipriani, vice president at public affairs firm Global Strategy Group, said at AHIP.

Trump has promised to protect Medicare if elected to a second term, and it’s unlikely he’d make any major changes to the program’s structure or eligibility requirements, experts say.

But Medicare is quickly running out of money, and neither Trump nor Biden has issued a complete plan to ensure it survives beyond 2024. Political consultants think it’ll teeter right up to the edge of insolvency before lawmakers feel compelled to act.

The president’s administration has allowed Medicare to pay for telehealth and expanding supplemental benefits in privately run Medicare Advantage programs, efforts that would likely bleed into his second term — or Biden’s first, given general bipartisan support on both, experts say.

Under Trump, HHS did pass a site-neutral payment policy, cutting Medicare payments for hospital outpatient visits in a bid to save money. But Democratic lawmakers have argued Trump’s calls to get rid of the federal payroll tax, which partially funds Medicare, could throw the future of the cash-strapped program in jeopardy.

The president has also signed legislation experts say accelerated insolvency, including the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 and the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2020, which repealed the ACA’s Cadillac tax — a tax on job-based insurance premiums above a certain level.

Nixing that tax lowered payroll tax revenue, also dinging Medicare’s shrinking trust fund.

Trump’s proposed budget for the 2021 fiscal year floated culling about $450 billion in Medicare spending over a decade. And repealing the ACA would also nix provisions that closed the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole,” that added free coverage of preventive services and reduced spending to strengthen Medicare’s winnowing Hospital Insurance Trust Fund.

Biden

Biden has proposed lowering the Medicare age of eligibility to 60 years, with the option for people aged 60-64 to keep their coverage if they like it. The idea is popular politically, though providers oppose it, fearful of losing more lucrative commercial revenue.

It would make about 20 million more people eligible for the insurance, but could also add even more stress onto the program, experts say. Biden’s campaign says it would be financed separately from the current Medicare program, with dollars from regular tax revenues, and will reduce hospital costs.

Biden also says he’d add hearing, vision and dental benefits to Medicare.

Medicaid

Trump

Trump’s tenure has also been defined by repeated efforts to prune Medicaid. The president has consistently backed major cuts to the safety net insurance program, along with stricter rules for who can receive coverage. That’s likely to continue.

Republican lawmakers maintain the program costs too much and discourages low-income Americans from getting job-based coverage, and have enacted policies trying to privatize Medicaid. The Trump administration took a step toward a long-held conservative dream earlier this year, when CMS invited state waivers that would allow states to deviate from federal standards in program design and oversight, in exchange for capped funding.

So far, no states have enacted the block grants.

The administration also aggressively encouraged states to adopt work requirements, programs tying Medicaid coverage to work or volunteering hours. A handful of states followed suit, but all halted implementation or rolled back the idea following fierce public backlash and legal ramifications.

And repealing the ACA would ax Medicaid expansion, which saved some 20,000 lives between 2014 and 2017, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

Biden

Biden, however, wants to preserve expansion, and would take a number of other steps to bolster the program, including increasing federal Medicaid funding for home- and community-based services. The roughly 4.8 million adults in states that elected not to expand Medicaid would be automatically enrolled into his public option, with no premium and full Medicaid benefits.

Additionally, states that have expanded Medicaid could elect to move their enrollees into the public option, with a maintenance-of-effort payment.

Lowering costs of drugs and services

Trump

Efforts to lower prescription drug costs have defined Trump’s healthcare agenda in his first term, and been a major talking point for the president. That’s more than likely to continue into a second term, experts say, despite a lack of results.

Trump did cap insulin costs for some Medicare enrollees, effective 2021. He also signed legislation in 2018 banning gag clauses preventing pharmacists from telling customers about cheaper options.

But despite fiery rhetoric and a litany of executive orders, Trump has made little if any concrete progress on actually lowering prices. One week into 2020, drugmakers had announced price hikes for almost 450 drugs, despite small price drops earlier in Trump’s tenure.

Trump has proposed several ideas either dropped later or challenged successfully by drugmakers in court, including allowing patients to import drugs from countries like Canada, banning rebates paid to pharmacy benefit manufacturers in Medicare and forcing drugmakers to disclose the list prices of drugs in TV ads.

The president has signed recent executive orders to lower costs largely viewed as pre-election gambits, including one tying drug prices in Medicare to other developed nations and another directing his agencies to end surprise billing. Implementation on both is months away. Trump has also promised to send Medicare beneficiaries $200 in drug discount cards before the election, an effort slammed as vote-buying that would cost Medicare at least $6.6 billion.

Both Trump and Biden support eliminating surprise bills but haven’t provided any details how. That “how” is important, as hospitals and payers support wildly different solutions.

Biden

Biden also has a long list​ of proposals to curb drug costs, including allowing the federal government to negotiate directly with drug manufacturers on behalf of Medicare and some other public and private purchasers, with prices capped at the level paid by other wealthy countries. Trump actually supported this proposal in his 2016 campaign, but quickly dropped it amid fierce opposition from drugmakers and free market Republican allies.

Biden would also cap out-of-pocket drug costs in Medicare Part D — but wouldn’t ban rebates, as of his current plan, allow consumers to import drugs (subject to safeguards) and eliminate tax breaks for drug advertising expenses.

He would also prohibit prices for all brand-name and some generic drugs from rising faster than inflation under Medicare and his novel public option. Biden would create a board to assess the value of new drugs and recommend a market-based price, in a model that’s shown some efficacy in other wealthy countries like Germany.

Both Biden and Trump say they support developing alternative payment models to lower costs. But they diverge on the role of competition versus transparency in making healthcare more affordable. In a rule currently being challenged in court, Trump’s HHS required hospitals to disclose private negotiated prices between hospitals and insurers, with the hope price transparency will allow consumers to shop between different care sites and shame companies into lowering their prices.

Biden, by comparison, says he would enforce antitrust laws to prevent anti-competitive healthcare consolidations, and other business practices that jack up spending. Trump has been mum on the role of M&A in driving healthcare costs, and inherited a complacent Federal Trade Commission that’s done little to reduce provider consolidation. Until a contentious hospital merger in February this year, the FTC hadn’t opposed a hospital merger since 2016.

 

 

 

 

The risky politics of reopening the ACA debate

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The sudden threat to the ACA is risky for Republicans in 2020 election - Axios

The sudden uncertainty surrounding the future of the Affordable Care Act could be an enormous political liability for Republicans in key states come November.

Between the lines: Millions of people in crucial presidential and Senate battlegrounds would lose their health care coverage if the Supreme Court strikes down the law, as the Trump administration is urging it to.

The chart above shows the number of people enrolled in the ACA’s insurance marketplaces or covered through its Medicaid expansion.

  • These options have become especially important over the last six months, as millions of Americans lost their jobs — and thus their employer insurance — due to the pandemic.
  • And more than a quarter of non-elderly Americans have a pre-existing condition that insurers in the individual market could refuse to cover without the ACA, per the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The big picture: Republicans paid a steep electoral price for trying to repeal parts of the ACA in 2017. Republicans’ lawsuit against the health care law, if it succeeds, would boot even more people off of their coverage and undo even more of the ACA’s regulations.

What to watch: Several vulnerable Republicans, including Sens. Susan Collins, Martha McSally, and Cory Gardner, represent purple states that expanded Medicaid and would therefore see steep coverage losses. And the broader fight over the Supreme Court has made it impossible to ignore those stakes.

  • “With the Court setting Nov. 10 as the date for hearing California v. Texas, Republicans caught a break not having it front and center right before the election.  Now it is very much front and center,” said Rodney Whitlock, a former health aide for Sen. Chuck Grassley.
  • “Debates over protection of pre-existing conditions have generally not gone positively for Republicans in purple states/district,” he added.

 

 

 

 

This Legal Attack on the ACA Could Be the Big One

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Essential Health Benefits, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, Individual Mandate, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Medical Loss Ratio (MLR), Out of Pocket Expenses, Preexisting Conditions, Supreme Court, Underinsured, Uninsured • Leave a comment

This Legal Attack on the ACA Could Be the Big One

The flag-draped casket of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg lies in repose under the Portico at the top of the front steps of the US Supreme Court. Ginsburg died at 87 on September 18 after serving on the high court for 27 years. 

When news broke of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death on September 18, the outpouring of grief and gratitude for the accomplishments of the feminist icon was quickly followed by speculation over how her passing will affect the legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) now before the US Supreme Court.

The landmark health law survived high court rulings in 2012 and again in 2015. In each case, Chief Justice John Roberts voted with the court’s liberal bloc, including Ginsburg, to uphold the ACA. President Donald Trump has nominated conservative Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Circuit of the US Court of Appeals to fill Ginsburg’s seat. Because oral arguments for California v. Texas are set for one week after Election Day, supporters of the law are uneasy.

“If the suit had a trivial chance of success yesterday, it has a new lease on life,” University of Michigan law professor Nicholas Bagley told Amy Goldstein in the Washington Post after learning of Ginsburg’s death. “The ACA has become part of the basic plumbing of the US health care system. Ripping it out at this point would create enormous problems.”

If the ACA is overturned, the consequences could be severe. At this point, the nation remains mired in the coronavirus pandemic, which has metastasized into one of the greatest public health crises in a century. Last week, the US reached the horrific milestones of more than 7 million people infected and 200,000 dead from COVID-19. ACA protections for people with preexisting conditions would disappear if the health law is struck down, and more than 12 million adults who have gained health coverage through the ACA’s Medicaid expansion could lose it. More than 9 million others would lose access to subsidized premiums for private health insurance.

Still, the worst-case scenario is just one of many. Here is a review of the lawsuit, what’s at stake, and the potential outcomes.

Implications of Eliminating the Individual Mandate

California v. Texas originated from a consortium of Republican state attorneys general led by Texas. A California-led coalition of 20 states and Washington, DC, is defending the ACA. The Texas coalition argues that the ACA is unconstitutional in its entirety because Congress in 2017 zeroed out one provision of the lengthy law, the individual mandate. If that part of the ACA is invalid, they argue, then the rest is too.

Many legal experts find this position unpersuasive. The arguments “have been roundly criticized by conservative legal scholars, the Wall Street Journal editorial board, the National Review editorial board, health care stakeholders, and some Republican members of Congress and state officials,” ACA expert Katie Keith, JD, MPH, wrote on the Health Affairs Blog. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in the case on November 10, one week after the election.

Threats to the Vulnerable

Thanks to the 10-year-old ACA, millions of Americans have gained health coverage. This has proved to be essential during the global pandemic. But if the health law is struck down, about 21 million people who buy health insurance through the ACA exchanges or who gained coverage through Medicaid expansion would be at serious risk of becoming uninsured.

California enthusiastically leaned into the ACA from the start and saw the biggest decline in uninsured residents — 3.7 million — of any state. As the California uninsured rate fell, racial disparities in coverage were also reduced. By 2016, the ACA had produced historic declines in racial disparities in health coverage rates for Californians. (Learn more about the impact of the ACA in California with this collection of resources.)

Nationwide, nearly 133 million people with preexisting conditions could be denied coverage or be required to pay more for a health insurance policy if the ACA is eliminated. “Contracting the [coronavirus] is the ultimate preexisting condition,” Andy Slavitt, former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services under President Barack Obama, and Bagley wrote in the New York Times. “The disease can bring with it mysterious complications and affect virtually every organ system, the immune system, and even the limbs. Young, otherwise healthy people may find themselves uninsurable if the Affordable Care Act is struck down.”

A lawsuit that once seemed like a long shot now has a much more reasonable chance at success — and that means 20 million people’s health coverage really could be in the balance.

—Sam Baker, Axios

Also at risk are essential health benefits that the ACA requires all health plans to cover, including maternity care, mental health services, and substance use disorder treatment. If the law is overturned, they could disappear from insurance plans.

“Other popular provisions hang in the balance, including those that guarantee preventive care with no out-of-pocket payments; end lifetime caps; allow kids to stay on their parents’ insurance through age 26; and make vaccines free to patients. Even some key improvements to Medicare — including a reduction in prescription drug costs for beneficiaries — would be gone,” Slavitt and Bagley wrote.

The ACA’s impacts reach far beyond health care consumers. “Insurance companies, drug companies, hospitals, and doctors have all changed the way they do business because of incentives and penalties in the health law,” Julie Rovner wrote in Kaiser Health News. “If it’s struck down, many of the ‘rules of the road’ would literally be wiped away, including billing and payment mechanisms.”

Supreme Court Scenarios

If the Republican Senate votes to confirm Barrett before the oral arguments for California v. Texas, the ACA faces a tougher battle, though it could be narrowly upheld. Although Barrett has not participated in any cases regarding the ACA on the Seventh Circuit, “her academic writing and public action offer glimpses into her views” opposing the health law, Goldstein and Alice Crites reported in the Washington Post.

If Barrett misses the oral arguments, she will not participate in the case. The Supreme Court could choose to postpone the arguments or proceed with eight justices, which is “far from unprecedented,” Keith wrote. Should that result in a 4-4 ruling, the lower court’s decision would stand, and the case would be remanded to a federal district court judge to decide which other provisions of the law must fall along with the individual mandate. Other provisions on the chopping block “could include the law’s rules banning insurers from denying people coverage or charging them higher premiums because of their medical history,” Dylan Scott wrote in Vox. Litigation could continue for years, during which the ACA would remain the law of the land, according to Keith.

This is not an exhaustive list of potential outcomes. For example, an eight-judge court could narrowly rule in favor of the ACA.

As Sam Baker wrote in Axios, “A lawsuit that once seemed like a long shot now has a much more reasonable chance at success — and that means 20 million people’s health coverage really could be in the balance.”

 

 

 

 

The first presidential debate: 7 healthcare takeaways

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Credibility, Essential Health Benefits, Evidence-based Leadership, Evidence-Based Plan, Evidence-Based Policy, Executive Orders, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Honesty, Integrity, Out of Pocket Expenses, Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), Preexisting Conditions, Scientists, Social Distancing, Supreme Court, Transparency, Trust, Truth, Vaccine, Vaccine Distribution • Leave a comment

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5 key takeaways from Joe Biden and Donald Trump's 1st presidential debate - ABC News

President Donald Trump and former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden sparred over the future of the ACA, the COVID-19 pandemic and health insurance during a 90-minute debate in Cleveland Sept. 29.

Seven takeaways for healthcare leaders:

The ACA

1. Moderator and Fox News host Chris Wallace opened the debate with the topic of President Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the first few minutes of the debate, the discussion turned to the future of the ACA should Ms. Coney Barrett join the Supreme Court. A week after the November presidential election, the Supreme Court is set to hear a lawsuit, supported by the Trump administration, that seeks to overturn the ACA. 

2. If the Supreme Court overturns the ACA, Mr. Biden said 22 million Americans would lose insurance and 100 million would lose protections for preexisting conditions. HHS said in 2017 as many as 133 million Americans have preexisting conditions, and a KFF analysis estimates 54 million Americans have conditions serious enough to lead to coverage denials if the ACA is overturned.

3. Mr. Wallace questioned the president about his promise to repeal and replace the ACA, adding that President Trump hadn’t released a comprehensive plan to replace the health law despite pledges to do so. The president disagreed with that, saying he had gotten rid of the individual mandate. Mr. Wallace said eliminating the mandate was not a comprehensive plan. Mr. Wallace called President Trump’s recent executive orders on preexisting conditions and surprise billing “largely symbolic.” President Trump disagreed, but did not tell how the executive orders would be implemented.

Drug prices 

4. The president said drug prices would be coming down “80 or 90 percent.” The president highlighted insulin, which he said he’s getting so inexpensively, “it’s like water.” Insulin continues to retail for about $300 per vial, according to STAT, but cheaper insulin prices could be coming for some seniors. CMS recently said it is expanding the number of Medicare Advantage plans that provide insulin for a $35 or less monthly copay.

Public option

5. In an exchange with Mr. Biden, President Trump accused the Democratic Party of wanting “socialist medicine,” and claimed Mr. Biden wants to end private insurance. Mr. Biden denied those claims and said his health plan, which includes expanded ACA subsidies and a public option, would allow employees to keep their private health insurance. He has not supported Medicare-for-All proposals.

COVID-19

6. On the topic of the pandemic, Mr. Wallace asked President Trump about differing timelines for a vaccine that have been presented by him versus federal scientists like CDC Director Robert Redfield, MD. The president said he has spoken with Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, who’ve said “they can go faster” on a vaccine, but “it’s a very political thing.” He added that the military is already set up to distribute vaccines. Mr. Biden questioned Americans’ trust in the process. A Sept. 29 poll from the Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index found 8 in 10 Americans wouldn’t likely get a first generation COVID-19 vaccine if the president said it was safe.

7. President Trump and Mr. Biden took different stances on masks. Mr. Biden cited Dr. Redfield’s renewed call to wear masks, and said masking up and social distancing would save 100,000 lives between now and January. President Trump responded by saying, “They’ve said the opposite.” He alluded to early in the pandemic when public health experts, including Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, were slow to recommend widespread mask-wearing before scientists better understood how the virus spreads. The CDC currently recommends that every American wear a mask.

 

 

 

Administration Sketches Healthcare Plan, Signs Executive Order

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https://www.medpagetoday.com/washington-watch/electioncoverage/88810?xid=fb_o&trw=no&fbclid=IwAR1OTD2FHXYsDzbKZ_H3MdTUNnvlxhe7kqEMtaZMXjRBpkHFksvvY-lHVGc

New Executive Order Applies to Foreign Third-Party Code | The Media Trust

Critics question value of provision addressing preexisting condition coverage.

President Trump presented his “America First Healthcare Plan” during a speech to healthcare professionals in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Thursday — a plan that mentioned preexisting condition coverage protections and surprise billing but did not seem to include comprehensive changes to the healthcare system.

“Under the America First Healthcare Plan, we will ensure the highest standard of care anywhere in the world, cutting-edge treatments, state-of-the-art medicine, groundbreaking cures, and true health security for you and your loved ones,” Trump said. “And we will do it rapidly, and it’s in very good order, and some of it has already been implemented.”

Executive Order Provisions

The president signed an executive order outlining the plan, but the order contained initiatives in only a few areas, including:

  • Preexisting condition coverage. The order says simply: “It has been and will continue to be the policy of the United States to ensure that Americans with preexisting conditions can obtain the insurance of their choice at affordable rates.” The order does not direct any government agency to enact a regulation nor request Congress to pass legislation. In August 2018, the Trump administration allowed the sale of “short-term, limited duration” insurance plans that could last for up to 3 years; these often exclude coverage for preexisting conditions but also typically cost less than comprehensive coverage.
  • Surprise billing. “Recognizing that both chambers of the Congress have made substantial progress towards a solution to end surprise billing, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) shall work with the Congress to reach a legislative solution by December 31, 2020,” the order says. “In the event a legislative solution is not reached by December 31, 2020, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall take administrative action to prevent a patient from receiving a bill for out-of-pocket expenses that the patient could not have reasonably foreseen.”
  • Price transparency. “Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall update the Medicare.gov Hospital Compare website to inform beneficiaries of hospital billing quality, including whether the hospital is in compliance with the Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule whether, upon discharge, the hospital provides patients with a receipt that includes a list of itemized services received during a hospital stay; and how often the hospital pursues legal action against patients, including to garnish wages, to place a lien on a patient’s home, or to withdraw money from a patient’s income tax refund,” the order reads.

Trump also announced another initiative, this one aimed at seniors. “Under my plan, 33 million Medicare beneficiaries will soon receive a card in the mail containing $200 that they can use to help pay for prescription drugs … The cards will be mailed out in coming weeks,” Trump said. The $6.6 billion cost of the cards will be paid for under the auspices of a Medicare demonstration program. These funds are ostensibly available via savings generated through Trump’s “most favored nation” executive order allowing Medicare to pay no more for certain prescription drugs than the price paid by other developed countries, a White House official said. That executive order has not yet been implemented, however, and court challenges are expected.

Final Rule Issued on Drug Importation

Trump also noted that the FDA issued a final rule on Thursday implementing the president’s July executive order earlier this month to allow for importation of certain less expensive prescription drugs from Canada. “This means a state or whatever — can go to Canada and buy drugs for a fraction of the price that they’re charging right now,” he said.

He also highlighted individual actions his administration had taken that mostly affected particular groups, including lowering insulin prices for certain Medicare beneficiaries, investing in childhood cancer research, and expanding health reimbursement accounts that employers can use to reimburse employees for medical expenses. The COVID-19 pandemic received scant mention other than a reference to slashing red tape to accelerate development of treatments for the disease, and a sentence about how the pandemic had greatly increased the use of telehealth.

During a telephone briefing with reporters Thursday afternoon, HHS Secretary Alex Azar highlighted the surprise billing provision. “The President is saying that all the relevant players — hospitals, doctors, insurance companies — had better get their act together and get legislation passed through Congress that protects patients against surprise medical bills from anybody — hospitals or doctors, doesn’t matter,” he said.

“Those special interest groups need to sort it out and figure out how that would work,” he continued. “There have been legislative packages that have come quite close on the Hill that are bipartisan, but…. the president is saying the time is now. And if they do not get legislation passed by January 1st, he is instructing me to use the full regulatory power of the U.S. government to protect patients against surprise medical bills.”

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), outgoing chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, & Pensions (HELP) Committee, praised the surprise billing announcement. “The president is right to call on Congress to pass legislation this year to end surprise medical billing,” Alexander said in a statement, adding that a bill currently going through the House and Senate addresses the issue effectively. “Ending surprise medical bills is a problem that requires a permanent solution passed by Congress this year. The American people can’t afford to wait any longer.”

Preexisting Condition Provision Panned

The preexisting condition provision drew scorn from Democratic legislators. The provision “offers no protection not already available through the existing Affordable Care Act (ACA) and no protection for millions of Americans with preexisting conditions if Trump is successful in packing the Supreme Court to destroy the ACA,” Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), chairman of the House Ways & Means Health Subcommittee, said in a statement.

But Azar said during the briefing that the ACA’s clause requiring insurers to cover preexisting conditions does no good if people aren’t able to afford insurance in the first place. “If you’re a couple, aged 55, living in Missouri, making $70,000 a year, Obamacare is going to cost you $30,000 in premiums and a $12,000 deductible,” he said.

Azar promised that the administration “will work with Congress or otherwise to ensure” that people with pre-existing conditions are protected, but he did not indicate how that would be made affordable to individuals without government subsidies of the sort Republicans have long opposed.

Bob Laszewski, president of Health Policy and Strategy Associates in Alexandria, Virginia, questioned how much good the executive order’s preexisting condition provision would do. “Trump and the Republicans couldn’t pass an alternative to Obamacare in 2017 when they controlled the White House and both houses of Congress,” he wrote in a blog post. “But, now he can just sign an executive order and everything is fixed? He has signed a number of healthcare-related executive orders and just about all of them are tied up in the byzantine federal regulatory process, or have faded away. This is just an election-year gimmick in an attempt to persuade voters that Trump has healthcare policy under control. There are a lot of governments in the world that operate by executive fiat. Ours is not one of them.”

 

 

 

 

‘People should worry:’ ACA in limbo after Bader Ginsburg’s passing

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Chronic Care Management, Chronic Conditions, Chronic Diseases, Deferred Healthcare, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Health Benefits, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Medical Loss Ratio (MLR), Out of Pocket Expenses, Pandemic, Preexisting Conditions, Severability, Supreme Court, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/people-should-worry-aca-in-limbo-after-bader-ginsburgs-passing/585545/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202020-09-22%20Healthcare%20Dive%20%5Bissue:29794%5D&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive

In less than two months, the Supreme Court is set to hear the case that could overturn the Affordable Care Act — without Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the bench, fanning anxieties the landmark law is in greater jeopardy due to her passing. 

“People should worry,” Nicholas Bagley, a health law expert and professor at the University of Michigan, said.

The death of the liberal justice on Friday at the age of 87 means that of the nine justices, there are now only three appointed by Democratic presidents instead of four.

Assuming the liberal wing was set to uphold the ACA, with Bader Ginsburg they would have only needed to pick up one more conservative justice to vote in favor of preserving the law. Chief Justice John Roberts has been a swing vote in several cases involving the law. Roberts’ 2012 vote saved the law from a fatal blow in a 5-4 decision when he deemed the individual mandate could be considered a tax. 

Without Bader Ginsburg, they’ll now need to sway two — raising concerns about whether that’s possible. 

“This opens it wide up and I really do think the law could be at risk,” Katie Keith, another legal expert who has followed the case closely, agreed.

The landmark but politically polarizing legislation ushered in health coverage gains and basic protections for millions under President Barack Obama (who appointed two of the three remaining liberal justices). The law’s latest time at the Supreme Court comes after a group of red states argued the law was moot after Republicans zeroed out a key part of it — a tax penalty for those that did not get insured as was required in the law.

However, a split decision may be welcome by ACA proponents.

If the the liberal wing is only able to sway one conservative justice, resulting in a 4-4 split case, it will buy more time for the law and its defenders, a set of blue states lead by California’s Attorney General Xavier Becerra. 

In that instance, the case would be punted all the way back down to Judge Reed O’Connor. The Fifth Circuit, which oversaw the appeal following a decision by O’Connor, ruled the individual mandate was unconstitutional but did not weigh in on whether the rest of the ACA could stand without the mandate. It sent that question back to O’Connor, and that’s where the case would land again, before O’Connor, in the event the Supreme Court punts.

That outcome buys more time, plus another opportunity to appeal and for the case to again work its way back before the Supreme Court.

But one legal expert said based on cases from this past term there is reason to be hopeful that two conservative justices could be swayed to leave the remainder of the ACA intact even if the mandate is ruled unconstitutional.

Legal experts point to cases from the most recent term in which Brett Kavanaugh and Roberts — both appointed by Republicans — weighed in on severability in a way viewed as favorable for the outcome of the ACA case. 

“I’m pretty hopeful,” Tim Jost, emeritus professor at Washington and Lee University School of Law, said.

Severability is an important question in the challenge to the ACA. The crux of the lawsuit centers on the argument that the individual mandate is so essential and intertwined into the fabric of the ACA that if the mandate is deemed unconstitutional than the entirety of the ACA must fall.

In their legal challenge, the red states and two individual plaintiffs argued that the individual mandate cannot be severed from the rest of the law, so the entire law should be overturned. That’s why ACA case watchers have tried to read the tea leaves by reviewing how justices have weighed in on severability in earlier cases.

Kavanaugh seemed emphatic about his belief that unconstitutional pieces of a larger law should not spell the demise for the entire law.

In a case decided this summer, political organizations were seeking to make robocalls to cell phones. However, a law, barred robocalls to Americans’ cellphones but was later amended by Congress to include an exception for the collection of debt. The plaintiffs argued this was a violation of the First Amendment, favoring debt-collection speech over political speech. The plaintiffs wanted the entirety of the robocall law overturned, not just the exception allowing robocalls for debt collection.

Kavanaugh wrote the 6-3 opinion, finding the exception for debt-collection unconstitutional, but ruling that the remainder of the law can stand. 

In his opinion, Kavanaugh wrote that the court’s preference has been to “salvage rather than destroy” the rest of the law in the event a part is deemed unconstitutional.

“The Court’s precedents reflect a decisive preference for surgical severance rather than wholesale destruction, even in the absence of a severability clause,” Kavanaugh wrote in his opinion in the case, Barr v. Association of Political Consultants.

And Roberts showed similar favor for surgically precise decisions when it comes to severability.  “We think it clear that Congress would prefer that we use a scalpel rather than a bulldozer,” he wrote in a separate 5-4 decision from this latest term regarding a challenge to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

 

 

 

 

Three Million People Lost Health Coverage From Their Employers During The Pandemic

Posted on by • Posted in 2020 Election Issues, ACA, Employee Furlough, Employee Hiring Freeze, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employee Protections, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Essential Health Benefits, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Health Policy, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, High Prices, Job, Job Loss, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Medicaid, Medicaid Expansion, Out of Pocket Expenses, Preexisting Conditions, Safety Net Hospitals, Safety-Net Providers, Underinsured, Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Uninsured • Leave a comment

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2020/09/20/pandemics-wrath-on-worker-health-coverage-tops-3-million-so-far/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=coronavirus&cdlcid=5d2c97df953109375e4d8b68#58cf3e92ed47

More than three million American workers lost health insurance coverage this spring and summer from their employers as the pandemic and spread of Covid-19 triggered massive job losses, a new study shows.

In all, there were 3.3 million adults under the age of 65 who lost employer-sponsored health insurance and almost two-thirds of them, or 1.9 million, “became newly uninsured from late April through mid-July,” according to a new analysis by The Urban Institute and funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The loss of employer coverage has hit Hispanic adults particularly hard with 1.6 million losing health benefits, Urban Institute researchers said.

And it could get worse.

“With continued weakness in the labor market, researchers conclude federal and state policymakers will need to act to prevent job losses from leading to further increases in uninsurance,” the authors of the report wrote about their analysis, which was derived from  2020 U.S. Census data.

In particular, the analysis underscores the need to expand health benefits, particularly Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, analysts say. The ACA dangled billions of dollars in front of states to expand Medicaid coverage for poor Americans but 12 states generally led by Republican Governors or legislatures have refused while President Donald Trump and his appointees at the U.S. Justice Department fight led by Republican Governors

 “The danger of an inadequate safety net can be seen in the non-expansion states, where the number of uninsured adults has already increased more than 1 million,” Robert Wood Johnson Foundation senior policy advisor Katherine Hempstead said in a statement accompanying the report.

 

 

 

U.S. Jobless Claims Fall, but Layoffs Continue: Live Updates

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U.S. jobless claims fall in mid-September, but the economy still suffering lots of layoffs - MarketWatch

New claims for state unemployment insurance fell last week, but layoffs continue to come at an extraordinarily high level by historical standards.

Initial claims for state benefits totaled 790,000 before adjusting for seasonal factors, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The weekly tally, down from 866,000 the previous week, is roughly four times what it was before the coronavirus pandemic shut down many businesses in March.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, the total was 860,000, down from 893,000 the previous week.

“It’s not a pretty picture,” said Beth Ann Bovino, chief U.S. economist at S&P Global. “We’ve got a long way to go, and there’s still a risk of a double-dip recession.”

The situation has been compounded by the failure of Congress to agree on new federal aid to the jobless.

A $600 weekly supplement established in March that had kept many families afloat expired at the end of July. The makeshift replacement mandated by President Trump last month has encountered processing delays in some states and has funds for only a few weeks.

“The labor market continues to heal from the viral recession, but unemployment remains extremely elevated and will remain a problem for at least a couple of years,” said Gus Faucher, chief economist at PNC Financial Services. “Initial claims have been roughly flat since early August, suggesting that the pace of improvement in layoffs is slowing.”

New claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, an emergency federal program for freelance workers, independent contractors and others not eligible for regular unemployment benefits, totaled 659,000, the Labor Department reported.

Federal data suggests that the program now has more beneficiaries than regular unemployment insurance. But there is evidence that both overcounting and fraud may have contributed to a jump in claims.

 

 

 

 

Administration’s Record on Health Care

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President Trump’s Record on Health Care

President Trump's Record on Health Care | KFF

A review of Trump’s health care record so far. Avoiding the problematic issue of Trump’s alleged plan, analysts at the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation released a report this week that examines President Trump’s record on health care over the last three and half years. Some highlights from the overview and the full analysis:

  • On the Affordable Care Act: “From the start of his presidential term, President Trump took aim at the Affordable Care Act, consistent with his campaign pledge leading up to the 2016 election. He supported many efforts in Congress to repeal the law and replace it with an alternative that would have weakened protections for people with pre-existing conditions, eliminated the Medicaid expansion, and reduced premium assistance for people seeking marketplace coverage. While the ACA remains in force, President Trump’s Administration is supporting the case pending before the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the ACA in its entirety that is scheduled for oral arguments one week after the election.”

 

  • On Medicare and Medicaid: “The Administration has proposed spending reductions for both Medicaid and Medicare, along with proposals that would promote flexibility for states but limit eligibility for coverage under Medicaid (e.g., work requirements).”

 

  • On drug prices: “The President has made prescription drug prices a top health policy priority and has issued several executive orders and other proposals that aim to lower drug prices; most of these proposals, however, have not been implemented, other than one change that would lower the cost of insulin for some Medicare beneficiaries with diabetes, and another that allows pharmacists to tell consumers if they could save money on their prescriptions. The Trump Administration has also moved forward with an initiative to improve price transparency in an effort to lower costs, though it is held up in the courts.”

 

  • On the response to the coronavirus: “The Trump administration has not established a coordinated, national plan to scale-up and implement public health measures to control the spread of coronavirus, instead choosing to have states assume primary responsibility for the COVID-19 response, with the federal government acting as back-up and ‘supplier of last resort.’ The President has downplayed the threat of COVID-19, given conflicting messages and misinformation, and often been at odds with public health officials and scientific evidence.”

 

President Trump’s Record on Health Care – Issue Brief