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ACA Alterations Will Jolt Health Exchanges for 2018

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The end of cost sharing reductions has insurers trying to raise premiums even higher than planned. Those high premiums and other changes to the Affordable Care Act may drive consumers away from the exchanges.

The loss of cost sharing reductions (CSR) and the presidential executive order altering the Affordable Care Act will combine to significantly shake up the insurance market for 2018, one analyst says.

The effect is likely to include raising rates so high that the number of healthcare consumers who do not purchase coverage will skyrocket.

Health plans are scrambling to raise their rates even higher than already planned, responding to President Donald Trump’s announcement that insurers will no longer receive the subsidies.

Insurers were forced to submit rates for next year while the fate of CSRs was still uncertain—one set of rates is for if the subsidies continued and the second is for a higher rate to be used if they did not.

Some insurers are asking for a chance to revise the rates already submitted, says Julius W. Hobson Jr., an attorney and healthcare analyst with the Polsinelli law firm in Washington, D.C.

The CSR termination comes right after President Trump issued a new executive order he says is designed to increase competition and choice. Critics say it would seriously weaken the ACA, and some say that’s intentional.

President Trump says the order will give millions of Americans more access to affordable coverage and make it easier for people to obtain large-group coverage. Others worry that it could lure healthy young Americans away from the ACA exchanges, leaving those who remain to pay higher premiums.

“The combination of the executive order and the CSR termination wreaks havoc on the health insurance market for all of 2018,” Hobson says. “This also comes just before the open enrollment and with cutting back money for the patient navigators who help people sign up, and with reduced access to the website. That all means there are going to be fewer people who sign up.”

Higher premiums and deductibles already were driving some consumers away from purchasing individual healthcare plans, Hobson notes, and more will follow when the CSR loss forces insurers to raise rates even higher.

If the Trump administration stops enforcing the individual mandate, as it has said it might, that would make even more consumers forgo coverage, he says.

Fewer consumers buying insurance on the ACA exchanges intensifies their existing problems, Hobson says.

Premiums and deductibles will continue to rise as insurers struggle to remain profitable with a smaller pool of older, sicker patients driving high utilization costs. More and more consumers will leave the exchanges if they can, he says.

“People are going to be looking at premium increases they just can’t afford,” Hobson says. “The individual market will take a big hit, but the impact on the group market is harder to predict. We don’t know yet whether the increases in the individual market will bleed over into the group market.”

The recent changes are intended to weaken the ACA, Hobson says.

“The administration has said the ACA is imploding, but also that they’re going to do everything they can to wreck it. It’s not imploding on its own, it’s being shoved down the trash chute,” Hobson says.

“Losing the CSR payments is critical and, at this point, it’s unlikely that even if Congress acted they could do anything in time to affect 2018. There’s no way of looking at this other than it having a negative outcome,” he says.

Kaufman Hall: 2017 Hospital M&A activity to potentially outpace 2016

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https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/hospital-transactions-and-valuation/kaufman-hall-2017-hospital-m-a-activity-to-potentially-outpace-2016.html

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Eighty-seven hospital and health system transactions have occurred as of the end of the third quarter of 2017, leading some experts to suggest the total number of deals in 2017 may exceed the 102 deals completed in 2016, according to a recent analysis from Kaufman, Hall & Associates.

Kaufman Hall analysts report 29 transactions were announced during the third quarter, down slightly from the 31 deals announced during the second quarter of 2017.

Here are five findings from the analysis.

1. Eight transactions exceeding $1 billion in revenue have been announced in 2017 thus far. The figure is double the four such transactions announced in all of 2016.

2. The two largest transactions announced during the third quarter included the proposed merger between Charlotte, N.C.-based Carolinas HealthCare System and Chapel Hill, N.C.-based UNC Health Care — announced in September — and St. Louis-based Ascension’s proposed acquisition of Chicago-based Presence Health, announced in August.

3. Eight transactions announced during the third quarter of 2017 involved acquisitions by for-profit organizations, while 19 involved acquisitions by nonprofit institutions.

4. Three transactions announced thus far this year involved academic medical centers partnering with for-profit entities.

5. The three states with the highest number of transactions announced during the third quarter include New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

“Transactions among larger and like-sized organizations are rising as health systems across the country look to build scale and new capabilities for an uncertain healthcare environment,” said Anu Singh, managing director of Kaufman Hall. “These transactions are driven primarily by strategic imperatives and less so, by financial drivers … We’re also seeing an uptick in creative affiliations, with partnerships using non-traditional models to achieve their strategic goals in response to a new set of market factors that were not present a decade ago.”

Trump Flip-Flops on Senate Health Care Deal

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President opposes bipartisan deal he supported the day before.

President Donald Trump reversed gears on a bipartisan Senate health care deal Wednesday, saying he would not sign the pact reached by Sens. Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray less than 24 hours after he signaled support for it in a public appearance in the Rose Garden.

Trump “supports the process” of trying to find a short-term fix to the 2010 health care law, but he “doesn’t support the result,” a White House official said of the efforts by the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

The opposition comes just after Trump tweeted Wednesday morning he could not “support bailing out ins co’s who have made a fortune w/ O’Care.”

That came after Trump said in a speech to the Heritage Foundation Tuesday that he opposed continuing cost-sharing subsidy payments that help low-income people pay for health insurance on the exchange, the crux of the Alexander-Murray deal and something state insurance officials and insurance companies say is essential to the markets not collapsing. Trump last week said he would end the administration’s practice of making those payments.

That move has not resonated with the public. Fifty-three percent of respondents to an Economist/YouGov survey conducted Oct. 15 and 16 said they disapproved of the executive move, compared to 31 percent who were in favor. Sixteen percent declined to give an opinion.

“While I commend the bipartisan work done by Senators Alexander and Murray — and I do commend it — I continue to believe Congress must find a solution to the Obamacare mess instead of providing bailouts to insurance companies,” Trump said.

That speech came just a few hours after he said in the Rose Garden that administration officials have been involved in the Alexander-Murray talks and signaled he supported what he described as a one- or two-year package.

In that White House appearance, Trump called the Alexander-Murray move a “short-term deal” that is needed to “get us over this hump” until Republicans might find a way to send him a measure to partially or completely repeal the Obama-era law.

During a HELP Committee hearing that wrapped up just after Trump’s tweet Wednesday, Alexander said he and Murray, along with several co-sponsors, would present the plan on the Senate floor.

Murray ruled out major changes to the plan after Trump’s newfound position.

“This is our bipartisan agreement. We’ve agreed on it, and it’s a good compromise, both of us had to give and that’s what we have,” the Washington Democrat said.

Alexander said the president had encouraged senators to keep working toward a deal.

“The president called me this morning, which is the third time he’s called me about this. I appreciate his encouragement of the process,” the Tennessee Republican said. “He asked me to do it, to work with Sen. Murray on the project. He said he would review the legislation, which is what I would expect a president to do. So we will keep working on it.”

Alexander said Tuesday he briefed Senate Republicans on the temporary plan that would provide funding through 2019 for cost-sharing reduction subsidies that help lower-income consumers. It would also give states more flexibility to seek waivers to bypass the law under certain conditions.

Requirements for certain health benefits and banning insurers from charging more would stay in place, Alexander said.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s position remains that the Senate should focus on repeal and replace efforts, a spokesman said.

Trump Acting Solo: What You Need To Know About Changes To The Health Law

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https://khn.org/news/trump-acting-solo-what-you-need-to-know-about-changes-to-the-health-law/

Apparently frustrated by Congress’ inability to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, President Donald Trump this week decided to take matters into his own hands.

Late Thursday evening, the White House announced it would cease key payments to insurers. Earlier on Thursday, Trump signed an executive order aimed at giving people who buy their own insurance easier access to different types of health plans that were limited under the ACA rules set by the Obama administration.

“This is promoting health care choice and competition all across the United States,” Trump said at the signing ceremony. “This is going to be something that millions and millions of people will be signing up for, and they’re going to be very happy.”

The subsidy payments, known as “cost-sharing reductions,” are payments to insurers to reimburse them for discounts they give policyholders with incomes under 250 percent of the federal poverty line, or about $30,000 in income a year for an individual. Those discounts shield these lower-income customers from out-of-pocket expenses, such as deductibles or copayments. These subsidies have been the subject of a lawsuit that is ongoing.

The cost-sharing reductions are separate from the tax credit subsidies that help millions of people pay their premiums. Those are not affected by Trump’s decision.

Some of Trump’s actions could have an immediate effect on the enrollment for 2018 ACA coverage that starts Nov. 1. Here are five things you should know.

1. The executive order does not make any immediate changes.

Technically, Trump ordered the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Treasury within 60 days to “consider proposing regulations or revising guidance, to the extent permitted by law,” on several different options for expanding the types of plans individuals and small businesses could purchase. Among his suggestions to the department are broadening rules to allow more small employers and other groups to form what are known as “association health plans” and to sell low-cost, short-term insurance. There is no guarantee, however, that any of these plans will be forthcoming. In any case, the process to make them available could take months.

2. The cost-sharing reduction changes ARE immediate but might not affect the people you expect.

Cutting off payments to insurers for the out-of-pocket discounts they provide to moderate-income policyholders does not mean those people will no longer get help. The law, and insurance company contracts with the federal government, require those discounts be granted.

That means insurance companies will have to figure out how to recover the money they were promised. They could raise premiums (and many are raising them already). For the majority of people who get the separate subsidies to help pay their premiums, those increases will be borne by the federal government. Those who will be hit hardest are the roughly 7.5 million people who buy their own individual insurance but earn too much to get federal premium help.

Insurers could also simply drop out of the ACA entirely. That would affect everyone in the individual market and could leave some counties with no insurer for next year. Insurers could also sue the government, and most experts think they would eventually win.

3. This could affect your insurance choices for next year. But it’s complicated.

The impact on your plan choices and premiums for next year will vary by state and insurer. For one thing, insurers have a loophole that allows them to get out of the contracts for 2018, given the change in federal payments. So, some might decide to bail. That could leave areas with fewer — or no — insurers. The Congressional Budget Office in August estimated that stopping the payments would leave about 5 percent of people who purchase their own coverage through the ACA marketplaces with no insurers in 2018.

For everyone else, the move would result in higher premiums, the CBO said, adding an average of about 20 percent. In some states, regulators have already allowed insurers to price those increases into their 2018 rates in anticipation that the payments would be halted by the Trump administration.

But how those increases are applied varies. In California, Idaho, Louisiana, Pennsylvania and South Carolina, for example, regulators had insurers load the costs only onto one type of plan: silver-level coverage. That’s because most people who buy silver plans also get a subsidy from the federal government to help pay their premium, and those subsidies rise along with the cost of a silver plan.

Consumers getting a premium subsidy, however, won’t see much increase in their out-of-pocket payments for the coverage. Consumers without premium subsidies will bear the additional costs if they stay in a silver plan. In those states, consumers may find a better deal in a different metal-band of insurance, including higher-level gold plans. Many states, however, allowed insurers to spread the expected increase across all levels of plans.

4. Congress could act.

Bipartisan negotiations have been renewed between Sens. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.) to create legislation that would continue the cost-sharing subsidies and give states more flexibility to develop and sell less generous health care plans than those currently offered on the exchanges. Trump’s move to end the cost-sharing subsidies may bolster those discussions.

In a statement, Murray called Trump’s action to withdraw cost-sharing subsidies “reckless” but said she continues “to be optimistic about our negotiations and believe we can reach a deal quickly — and I urge Republican leaders in Congress to do the right thing for families this time by supporting our work.”

Trump on Friday urged Democrats to work with him to “make a deal” on health care. “Now, if the Democrats were smart, what they’d do is come and negotiate something where people could really get the kind of healthcare that they deserve, being citizens of our great country,” he said Friday afternoon.

Earlier Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) did not sound as if he was in the mood to cut a deal.

“Republicans have been doing everything they can for the last ten months to inject instability into our health care system and to force collapse through sabotage,” he said in a statement. “Republicans in the House and Senate now own the health care system in this country from top to bottom, and their destructive actions, and the actions of the president, are going to fall on their backs. The American people see it, and they know full well which party is doing it.”

A poll released Friday by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that 71 percent of the public said they preferred that the Trump administration try to make the law work rather than to hasten replacement by encouraging its failure. The poll was conducted before Trump made his announcement about the subsidies. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)

5. Some states are suing, but the outcome is hard to guess.

Even though all states regulate their own insurance markets, states have limited options for dealing with Trump’s latest move. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia, led by New York and California, are suing the Trump administration to defend the cost-sharing subsidies. But it is unclear whether a federal court could say that the Trump administration is obligated to continue making the payments while that case is pending.