Tag Archives: High Deductible Health Plans

New bill would mean more flexibility for high-deductible health plans

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https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/regulatory/high-deductible-health-plans-bill-chronic-conditions?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTnpReE1EaGhZamt5TVRsbSIsInQiOiJ0UHBtVE1DclpRckhmUjVyMUF2ZWF1ZStSRE93QmtRYWM0ckdYXC9lalRYbERcL1E0R2o5S3g4blhTN2VZU1NsVkNndjRWZ1RRMnhJVXJHdmp6Z1liRWNXS2JyWHlrTyt6Y3hEeVVHZ0xxRWFUYmdjU2RsZWVhYzZmWWZxTCtBUjlcLyJ9&mrkid=959610

Health insurance benefits form

 

A new bill aims to give health plans more flexibility to help enrollees treat and prevent chronic diseases.

The bill, called the Chronic Disease Management Act of 2018, would amend the IRS tax code so that high-deductible health plans paired with health savings accounts could cover chronic disease prevention and treatment on a pre-deductible basis.

Diane Black, R-Tenn., and Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., introduced the bill in the House on Thursday, and John Thune, R-S.D., and Tom Carper, D-Del., did the same in the Senate, according to a release from the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design.

The existing IRS regulations, the center says in an accompanying fact sheet, permit a “safe harbor” that allows for the coverage of preventive services prior to satisfaction of the plan deductible. But that exception doesn’t include clinical services meant to treat an existing illness or condition, which narrows plan options and can stifle consumers’ ability to benefit from the financial advantages of a tax-free health savings account.

The new bill, on the other hand, would allow insurers to develop and implement “clinically nuanced” high-deductible health plans, the center says. The adoption of those type of policies, it adds, could make patients more likely to adhere to treatment plans, allow for lower premiums, enhance patient-centered outcomes and “substantially” reduce healthcare expenditures.

“This enhanced HDHP would provide millions of Americans a plan option that better meets their clinical and financial needs,” A. Mark Fendrick, M.D., the center’s director, said in a statement.

The idea of value-based insurance design (V-BID) has been gaining traction in recent years due to its potential to lower costs by allowing payers more leeway in how they design health plan benefits. Indeed, a 2016 study found that a VBID model tested in Connecticut was able to boost the use of preventive healthcare services among participants.

It’s also being tested in privatized Medicare. In fact, the Trump administration announced in November that it would expand the existing Medicare Advantage value-based insurance design model to an additional 15 states and broaden the options available for participants.

 

Under Obamacare, Out-Of-Pocket Costs Dropped But Premiums Rose, Study Finds

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http://www.wbur.org/commonhealth/2018/01/23/obamacare-household-spending

Isabel Diaz Tinoco (left) and Jose Luis Tinoco speak with Otto Hernandez, an insurance agent from Sunshine Life and Health Advisors, as they shop for insurance under the Affordable Care Act at a store setup in the Mall of Americas on Nov. 1, 2017 in Miami, Fla. The open enrollment period to sign up for a health plan under the Affordable Care Act runs until Dec. 15. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Passing the Affordable Care Act was always much more about extending coverage than cutting costs. Still, as the landmark law faces one challenge after another, new data are giving a better picture of how the law has played out. That includes a new study that looks at how Obamacare affected household medical spending.

The short answer: On average, Obamacare did not affect household medical spending very much — but it definitely did cut costs for poorer people more than it did for people with more money. Here’s our discussion on Radio Boston, edited:

Host Meghna Chakrabarti: So what did this study find?

Carey Goldberg: The study was looking for how Obamacare was affecting our medical spending. As with everything with Obamacare, it’s complicated. But here we go: In a nationally representative sample of over 80,000 adults, overall, in the first couple of years after Obamacare really kicked in — 2014 and ’15 — out-of-pocket payments dropped by an average of $74.

And by out-of-pocket payments, you mean co-pays and payments you have to make because you haven’t hit your deductible yet.

Right, or procedures that aren’t covered. And meanwhile, the insurance premiums that households paid rose by an average of $232. So it’s a funny little coincidental parallel — out-of-pocket payments dropped by 12 percent, but premium payments rose by 12 percent.

But I’d imagine the effects really varied depending on a household’s income level?

They did. The ACA was meant mainly to help households with lower incomes, and it did. The study found that 6.5 percent of the population became newly insured after the ACA kicked in, and overall, the ACA predominantly helped lower-income people.

Here’s Dr. Anna Goldman, from Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, the lead author on the study: ‘The big picture is that the ACA did make real progress by reducing out-of-pocket spending, especially for poor and low-income households. But even in light of this progress, many American households still continue to face burdensome medical costs.’

On those ‘burdensome costs,’ this study also looked at what’s called ‘high-burden spending,’ which is defined as paying more than 5 or 10 percent of your income on out-of-pocket medical expenses. Premiums can be considered ‘high burden,’ too — that cut-off is if you’re paying more than 9.5 percent of your income.

So if I’m earning 20,000 a year, and I’m hit with out of pocket medical expenses of over $,1,000, that would be considered ‘high-burden’ or a premium that runs me close to $ 2,000 a year.

Right. So on these ‘high burden medical expenses, the good news is that out-of-pocket, high-burden spending fell by 20 percent overall — and it especially dropped for poor people. The not-so-good news for better-off folks is that among middle-income households, there was a 28 percent increase in high-burden spending on premiums.

Because premiums have been getting steeper and steeper. Does this study suggest the ACA is to blame?

No. Dr. Goldman says a better way to look at it is that while the ACA did help with out-of-pocket costs, it didn’t stem from the rise in premiums that was already underway.

I have to admit this is a little underwhelming. We have devoted so much attention and so much political wrangling to Obamacare over the last years, and this study is telling us that at least in the first couple of years, and in terms of household costs, it’s been something of a wash.

I feel the same way. What Dr. Goldman, the lead researcher, commented about that is, look, the ACA was the biggest reform of the health care system since 1965, and to get passed it had to involve a lot of political compromise:

‘It was nowhere near as radical as it could have been,’ she said. ‘I think that a single-payer plan, for example, which many Democrats on the more progressive side of the party were advocating for, would have been much more effective in reducing medical spending by all American households, certainly for people in poor and low-income households — no co-payments, no deductibles, no premiums.”

This isn’t news either, but a single-payer system apparently in this country has not been in the realm of the politically possible.

I would think the ACA as it is right now isn’t even within the realm of political possibility at the moment. The individual mandate is already out.

It’s on its way out. Although not here in Massachusetts, we should note. But what this study also tells us is that as the individual mandate and other aspects of the ACA get phased out, it will be largely the poorer people who will mostly lose out.

In the study’s conclusions the authors write that without the individual mandate, the numbers of people without insurance will go back up again, as will out-of-pocket costs, and premiums will likely rise, too, because healthier people won’t be buying insurance.

The final sentence of the paper says that international experience shows that a universal, comprehensive national health insurance program would be the most effective way to reduce household spending on medical expenses and the gaps between rich and poor.

 

No, Trump Hasn’t ‘Essentially Repealed Obamacare’

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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/12/20/trump-obamacare-mandate-repeal-taxes-216125

Image result for ACA

Killing the mandate doesn’t gut the health care law. Most likely, it will muddle along, because the rest of it is broadly popular.

In July and again in September, Republicans narrowly failed to repeal the Affordable Care Act. But their newly passed tax legislation included a provision getting rid of Obamacare’s mandate requiring Americans to buy insurance, and President Donald Trump immediately declared victory in the partisan health care wars. “When the individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed,” he crowed at a Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. “We have essentially repealed Obamacare.”

Well, no. The individual mandate is only part of Obamacare. It wasn’t even included in the original health care plan that Barack Obama unveiled during the 2008 campaign. The mandate did become an important element of Obamacare, and the only specific element that a majority of the public opposed. But the more generous elements of the program—like a major expansion of Medicaid, significant government subsidies for private insurance premiums, and strict protections for pre-existing conditions—are still popular, and still the law of the land.

“The death of Obamacare has been exaggerated,” says Larry Levitt, who oversees health reform studies at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “Eliminating the mandate creates uncertainty, but all the benefits for people remain in place.”

The Republican ecstasy and Democratic gloom over the death of the mandate reflects the most consistent misperception over the seven-plus years of Affordable Care Act debates, the incorrect assumption that the “Obamacare exchanges,” where Americans can buy private insurance, are synonymous with Obamacare. The vast majority of Americans who get their coverage through Medicare, Medicaid or their employers shouldn’t be affected. Yes, killing the mandate could cause problems for the remaining 6 percent of Americans who have to buy insurance on the open market, but nearly half will remain eligible for subsidies that would insulate them from any premium hikes.

Repealing the tax penalties for Americans who don’t buy insurance would not repeal Obamacare’s perks for Americans who do—like the ban on annual and lifetime caps that insurers previously used to cut off coverage for their sickest customers, or the provision allowing parents to keep their children on their plans until they turn 26. And it would not repeal Obamacare’s “delivery reforms” that are quietly transforming the financial incentives in the medical system, gradually shifting reimbursements to reward the quality rather than quantity of care. The growth of U.S. health care costs has slowed dramatically since the launch of Obamacare, and the elimination of the mandate should not significantly affect that trend.

In fact, during the 2008 campaign, Obama was the only Democratic candidate whose health plan did not include a mandate, because he was the only Democratic candidate who thought the main problem with health care was its cost. “It’s just too expensive,” he explained at an Iowa event in May 2007. Insurance premiums had almost doubled during the George W. Bush era, and Obama believed that was the reason so many Americans were uninsured. He doubted it would be worth the political heartburn to try to force people to buy insurance they couldn’t afford.

But Obama eventually embraced the argument that a mandate was necessary to ensure that young and healthy Americans bought insurance. The fear was that otherwise, insurance markets dominated by the old and sick (who would enjoy the law’s new protections for pre-existing conditions) would have produced even higher premiums, and might scare insurers away from serving Americans who don’t get coverage through their jobs or the government. Killing the mandate will be a step in that direction, boosting Trump’s heighten-the-contradictions effort to sabotage the functioning of Obamacare to build support for a more sweeping repeal.

That effort has already produced some damaging results for the exchanges. Insurers have increased their premiums for 2018, repeatedly citing uncertainty over Trump’s efforts to blow up Obamacare as well as his decision to cut off promised payments to insurers who cover lower-income families. Several insurers left the exchanges even before the elimination of the mandate, and others could follow.

But the widespread warnings that wide swaths of America would have no insurers on the exchanges were wrong; there are zero “bare counties” with no insurers for 2018. And a Kaiser review found the exchanges have gotten more profitable for insurers this year,despite Trump’s efforts to damage them. This year’s enrollment period appears to have gone fairly well even though the Trump administration shortened it by half and slashed its promotional budget.

The fear is that eliminating the mandate could produce a “death spiral” for the exchanges, where higher premiums scare away healthier customers, leading to even higher premiums and even sicker customers—until eventually,the insurers decide to bail. It could also encourage insurers to try to lure healthier customers with cheaper but skimpier plans that don’t provide protections for pre-existing conditions, since those customers would no longer have to pay a tax penalty.

But it is also possible that younger and healthier customers who initially bought insurance because they were required to do so will now buy insurance because they want to; surveys show that more than 75 five percent of Americans covered on the exchanges are happy with their coverage. And as a political matter, repealing the unpopular mandate could make it even harder for Republicans to pass legislation repealing insurance protections, Medicaid expansions and the rest of Obamacare, because the rest of Obamacare is popular. It’s not surprising that Republicans managed to kill the law’s vegetables, but it won’t be as easy to kill dessert.

Trump thinks congressional Democrats will soon be begging him to come up with a replacement for Obamacare, and even many Republicans who don’t embrace that fantasy believe the demise of the mandate will ratchet up pressure for a permanent solution to a seven-year political war. It could happen. But there hasn’t been a lot of bipartisanship in Washington lately, and after the Doug Jones upset in Alabama, it seems unlikely that a Senate with one fewer Republican will be more amenable to a Republican-only repeal bill.

The most likely outcome seems to be at least a few more years of Obamacare muddling through, and at least a few more years of Obamacare political warfare.

 

Illinois hospitals’ financial struggles likely to continue into 2018

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http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-hospital-financial-struggles-20171215-story.html

Image result for Illinois hospitals' financial struggles likely to continue into 2018

he list reads like a who’s who of hospital systems in the Chicago area: Advocate Health Care, Edward-Elmhurst Health, Centegra Health System.

But it’s a list of hospitals systems that cut jobs this year to deal with financial pressures — not a list any hospital is eager to join.

Hospitals in Illinois and across the country faced financial stresses this year and are likely to continue feeling the squeeze into 2018 and beyond, experts say. Those pressures could fuel more cuts, consolidation and changes to patient care and services.

“We have many hospitals doing their best just to survive,” said A.J. Wilhelmi, president and CEO of the Illinois Health and Hospital Association.

Moody’s Investors Service recently downgraded its outlook for not-for-profit health care and public health care nationally from stable to negative, with the expectation that operating cash flow will fall by 2 percent to 4 percent over the next 12-18 months. About three-fourths of Illinois hospitals are not-for-profit.

“(For) almost every hospital and health system we talk to, (financial pressure) is at the top of their list in terms of ongoing issues,” said Michael Evangelides, a principal at Deloitte Consulting.

A number of factors are to blame.

Leaders of Illinois systems say reimbursements from government insurance programs, such as Medicaid and Medicare, don’t cover the full cost of care. And with baby boomers growing older, many hospitals’ Medicare populations are on the rise. It doesn’t help that payments to hospitals from the state were delayed amid Illinois’ recently resolved, two-year budget impasse, Wilhelmi said.

Unpaid medical bills, known as bad debt, are also increasing as more patients find themselves responsible for large deductibles. Payments from private insurers are no longer helping hospitals as much as they once did. Though those payments tend to be higher than reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid, they’re not growing as fast as they used to, said Daniel Steingart, a vice president at Moody’s.

Growing expenses, such as for drugs and information technology services, also are driving hospitals’ financial woes. And hospitals are spending vast sums on electronic medical record systems and cybersecurity, Steingart said.

Many also expect that the new federal tax bill, passed Wednesday, may further strain hospital budgets in the future. That bill will do away with the penalty for not having health insurance, starting in 2019. Hospital leaders worry that change will lead to more uninsured people who have trouble paying hospital bills and wait until their conditions become dire and complex before seeking care.

With so much going on, it can be tough for hospitals to meet revenue goals.

“You’re talking about a phenomenon taking place across the country,” said Advocate President and CEO Jim Skogsbergh. Advocate announced in May that it planned to make $200 million in cuts after failing to meet revenue targets. In March, Advocate walked away from a planned merger with NorthShore University HealthSystem after a federal judge sided with the Federal Trade Commission, which had challenged the deal. Advocate is now hoping to merge with Wisconsin health care giant Aurora Health Care, although the hospital systems say financial issues aren’t driving the deal.

“Everybody is seeing declining revenues, and margins are being squeezed. It’s a very challenging time,” Skogsbergh said.

Hospitals in Illinois have responded to the pressures in a number of ways, including with job reductions. Advocate laid off about 75 workers in the fall; Centegra announced plans in September to eliminate 131 jobs and outsource another 230; and Edward-Elmhurst laid off 84 employees, eliminating 234 positions in all, mostly by not filling vacant spots.

Hospitals also are changing some of the services they offer patients and delaying technology improvements, said the Illinois hospital association’s Wilhelmi.

Centegra Hospital-Woodstock earlier this year stopped admitting most overnight patients, one of a number of changes meant to save money and increase efficiency. As a result, the system “achieved our goal of keeping much-needed services in our community,” spokeswoman Michelle Green said in a statement.

Many Illinois hospitals have also cut inpatient pediatric services, citing weak demand, and are instead investing in outpatient services.

The challenge is saving money while improving care and patient outcomes, said Evangelides of Deloitte. Hospitals are striving to do both at the same time.

Advocate, for example, opened its AdvocateCare Center in 2016 on the city’s South Side to treat Medicare patients with multiple chronic illnesses and conditions. The clinic offers doctors, pharmacists, physical therapists, social workers and exercise psychologists. It has helped reduce hospital admissions and visits among its patients, said Dr. Lee Sacks, Advocate executive vice president and chief medical officer.

Advocate didn’t open the clinic primarily to help its bottom line. The goal was to improve patient care while also potentially reducing some costs.

But such moves are becoming increasingly important to hospitals.

“It really does impact everyone,” Evangelides said of the financial pressures facing hospitals. “We all have a giant stake in helping and hoping that the systems across the country … can ultimately survive and thrive.”

 

AP-NORC Poll: Health Care Is the Issue That Won’t Go Away

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https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/12/21/us/politics/ap-us-ap-poll-health-care.html

Image result for AP-NORC Poll: Health Care Is the Issue That Won't Go Away

As President Donald Trump completes his first year in office, Americans are increasingly concerned about health care, and their faith that government can fix it has fallen.

A new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that 48 percent named health care as a top problem for the government to focus on in the next year, up 17 points in the last two years.

The poll allows Americans to name up to five priorities and found a wide range of top concerns, including taxes, immigration and the environment. But aside from health care, no single issue was named by more than 31 percent.

And 7 in 10 of those who named health care as a top problem said they had little to no confidence that government can improve matters. The public was less pessimistic in last year’s edition of the poll, when just over half said they lacked confidence in the problem-solving ability of lawmakers and government institutions.

“We are way up there on the cost, and as far as giving good health care, we are way down,” said Rebekah Bustamante of San Antonio, a retired medical imaging technician. “Now in health care, you’re a number.”

Bustamante said she voted for Trump, but “he’s learning on the job, and he’s got a long way to go.”

Trump initially promised his own plan that would deliver “insurance for everybody” and “great” health care, “much less expensive and much better.” But the White House never released a health care proposal from the president.

GOP legislation to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law failed in Congress, although the tax bill scraps the Obama requirement that most people get health insurance. Bloodied on both sides, Republicans and Democrats seem to have battled to an uneasy draw on health care.

Meanwhile, conflicting policy signals from Washington, including an abrupt White House decision to cancel insurer subsidies, roiled insurance markets. Premiums on health plans purchased by individuals jumped by double digits. Progress reducing the number of uninsured stalled, and one major survey found an uptick this year.

“There is zero bipartisanship, and it’s frustrating,” said Eric Staab, a high school teacher from Topeka, Kansas. “It seems like we have thrown everything at this dartboard, and nothing is improving the coverage.”

Rumblings of discontent have political repercussions for next year’s midterm elections and the presidential contest in 2020, said Robert Blendon, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who follows opinion trends on health care.

“It’s the issue that won’t go away,” said Blendon. “Given the news cycle, taxes should be first, the economy should be second, and this health care thing should be buried.”

Three in 10 Americans listed taxes among their top priorities, about double the percentage who said that last year. About a quarter mentioned immigration, and just under 2 in 10 mentioned environmental issues and education. Meanwhile, concerns about unemployment plunged to 14 percent, about half the mentions as last year.

Health care was by far the top issue mentioned by Democrats and independents. Republicans were about equally likely to mention immigration, health care and taxes.

Democrats were more likely than Republicans to say they have little to no confidence that the government will make progress on health care, 84 percent to 57 percent.

The reason health care doesn’t fade away is that costs aren’t getting any more manageable, said some people who took part in the AP-NORC survey.

Bustamante said she is planning a trip to Mexico for some dental work, because she can obtain quality service for much less there. “Thank God I live in Texas, where getting to Mexico isn’t that far away,” she said. “But everybody doesn’t have that option.”

ShyJuan Clemons of Merrillville, Indiana, said he’s currently uninsured because his previous health plan was costing too much money for the benefit he got from it. He faced his insurance plan’s annual deductible when he went to the doctor, so he’d wind up paying out-of-pocket for visits, on top of premiums.

“You are not constantly worried about taxes, but you are constantly worried about health care — be it major or minor,” said Clemons, a personal care attendant who works with disabled people. “You catch a cold, and you just think about it in passing — ‘I hope it doesn’t develop into a problem.'”

Clemons, a Democrat, said he’s disappointed that Trump and Republicans in Congress seem to be trying to tear down “Obamacare” instead of building on it. “I would like to see them make the thing run smoothly so we can do better, instead of just trying to cripple it,” he said.

The lack of confidence in the ability of government to find pragmatic solutions extended to other problems in the AP-NORC poll, including climate change, immigration, and terrorism.

Just 23 percent said that Trump has kept the promises he made while running for president, while 30 percent said he’s tried and failed, and 45 percent said he has not kept his promises at all.

Nearly 2 in 3 said they were pessimistic about the state of politics in the U.S. About half were downbeat about the nation’s system of government, and 55 percent said America’s best days are behind.

 

Consumer-directed health plans enrollment up but costs are not coming down, RAND finds

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http://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/consumer-directed-health-plans-enrollment-costs-are-not-coming-down-rand-finds?mkt_id=1526895&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWm1NeVpXWmtNall4WTJWbCIsInQiOiJDV1RRSkR0bFhQOGpsaDlib0hldGUrdEVoK0ttS2Q1VXBQQldYaFhFeXRaYW4xRE9ZXC9rU1gxd0QwdlFtbCtPYWR5d3QwK0hHTlEwb0NKSnkrd2pcL0J1NCtOTklqc2hyZ1ArWDZRY2E5RjBoXC80NG8xaVhzT1kyV3Z1N0tIUnRCeCJ9

 

Even though high-deductible insurance options could save patients thousands of dollars every year, most people are not shopping around.

An increasingly popular form of health insurance touted for its money-saving potential has not reduced spending on unnecessary medical services, a new study shows.

Researchers from the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics and the RAND Corp. found that consumer-directed, high-deductible health plans have little or no effect on curbing spending on 26 services that medical professional and industry groups have deemed “low value.”

The researchers compared patient spending on unnecessary medical services, such as an MRI for lower back pain or imaging for an uncomplicated headache, before and after they switched from a traditional insurance plan to a consumer-directed health plan — a form of high-deductible insurance.

The study, published in The American Journal of Managed Care, is the latest of several to indicate that high-deductible plans are falling short of their promises of significant savings.
Recent work by researchers at USC Schaeffer Center, the USC Price School of Public Policy and the USC School of Pharmacy have found that most consumers on high-deductible plans are not comparing prices to find the best deals on services or on prescription drugs, even though the research indicates that some patients could potentially save hundreds or thousands of dollars per year.

Unnecessary services add up to an estimated $750 billion in wasteful healthcare spending each year, according to the National Academy of Sciences. Examples of the unnecessary services in the list of 26 that the researchers tracked were T3 testing for hypothyroidism, a spinal injection for low-back pain and stress testing for stable coronary artery disease.

Patients on consumer-directed health plans share more costs for their care than patients on traditional plans as they pay a higher deductible. With the high-deductible plan, a patient can open a pre-taxed healthcare savings account and use it to pay for out-of-pocket medical services. This type of plan is often pitched as way to give consumers more skin in the game, presuming they will shop and compare prices for services or skip unnecessary care and therefore spend less.

Enrollment in these plans has risen dramatically in the last decade, with a nearly seven-fold increase. Only about 4 percent of Americans with employer-sponsored insurance were on a consumer-directed health plan in 2005, compared to about 30 percent today. The vast majority of individuals who obtained insurance under the Affordable Care Act are on consumer-directed health plans.

Patients are reducing their spending overall, but not for low-value services in particular — and medical providers also often lack incentives to curb spending on these services, which are frequently ineffective.

The study focused on 26 common, low-value services from various sources, including the Choosing Wisely campaign, national guidelines, peer-reviewed literature and professional consensus. Launched in 2012 by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation to raise awareness about unnecessary services, the Choosing Wisely campaign has compiled recommendations from more than 70 medical professional and specialty societies identifying common and wasteful medical tests, treatments and procedures whose use should be questioned or avoided.

While spending on unnecessary services did not significantly change after a patient switched plans, the high-deductible plan did result in an average, annual $231 decrease on outpatient spending.

Out-of-pocket health spending in 2016 increased at the fastest rate in a decade

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/06/out-of-pocket-health-spending-in-2016-increased-at-the-fastest-rate-in-a-decade/?utm_term=.42b85bdeba98

U.S. health care spending increased to $3.3 trillion in 2016, with out-of-pocket health care costs borne directly by consumers rising 3.9 percent — the fastest rate of growth since 2007.

The findings, published Wednesday by Health Affairs, are considered the authoritative breakdown of American health care spending and are prepared each year by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The overall rate of increase in health care spending experienced a slight slowdown over the previous year, driven in part by the expected moderation in growth after the expansion of insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act. There was also a sharp decrease in the growth of prescription drug expenditures, as hepatitis C treatment costs have declined and fewer patients are receiving them.

The slowdown in spending growth — a 4.3 percent increase in 2016, following a 5.8 percent growth the previous year — stemmed from changes in a broad array of health care sectors.

That ranged from slower growth in Medicaid spending after the surge in enrollment caused by the Affordable Care Act expansion, to a marked slowdown in prescription drug spending growth that had been pushed higher by the approval of a new, expensive treatment for hepatitis C in 2013.

A shift toward insurance plans that transfer more of the burden of health care costs onto patients helped fuel the rise in out-of-pocket costs. In 2016, 29 percent of people who receive insurance through employers were enrolled in high-deductible plans, up from 20 percent in 2014. The size of the deductibles also increased over this time period, a 12 percent increase in 2016 for individual plans, compared with a 7 percent increase in 2014.

Out-of-pocket spending grew the most on medical equipment and supplies and decreased slightly for prescription drugs, according to the analysis.

The most noticeable change was a big slowdown in prescription drug spending growth, which made up 10 percent of the total spending, or $328.6 billion. (That spending number does not include drugs administered by physicians or hospitals.)

That decrease highlights the effect that expensive new treatments used by large numbers of people can have on national spending. A new generation of expensive hepatitis C drugs drove national drug spending 12.4 percent higher in 2014 and 8.9 percent higher in 2015. In 2016, the prescription drug spending increased by 1.3 percent, closer to the rates in the years before the new drugs were approved.

The authors of the report attributed that trend not just to hepatitis C drugs. There were also fewer new, brand name drugs approved in 2016 — 22 new drugs, compared with 45 the previous year. Another factor was a slowdown in the growth of spending on insulin, a lifesaving drug for people with diabetes, in Medicare.

Insulin prices have been under intense scrutiny as drugmakers have increased the list prices of insulin while claiming the true cost to patients has remained flat due to discounts and rebates

Health care spending has been buffeted by unusual changes during the past decade. There was a historic slowdown in growth due to the Great Recession, and then the Affordable Care Act’s expansion of health insurance coverage fueled spending.

The authors said this year’s trend of slower growth could be a sign that things were returning to normal.

“Future health expenditure trends are expected to be mostly influenced by changes in economic conditions and demographics, as has historically been the case,” the authors wrote.

 

Healthcare lobbyists not optimistic on changing GOP tax bill

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http://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20171206/NEWS/171209899

Image result for big axe

Healthcare lobbyists are scrambling to win changes in congressional Republican tax legislation, as Senate and House GOP leaders race to merge their separate bills into something both chambers can pass on a party-line vote this month.

But provider, insurer and patient advocacy groups doubt they can convince Republicans to remove or soften the provisions they find most objectionable. They say GOP leaders are moving too fast and providing too little opportunity for healthcare stakeholders to provide input.

“It’s a madhouse,” said Julius Hobson, a veteran healthcare lobbyist with the Polsinelli law firm. “What you worry about is this will get done behind closed doors, even before they start the conference committee process.”

One factor that could slow the rush to pass the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act is the need to pass a continuing resolution this week to fund the federal government and prevent a shutdown. Unlike with the tax bill, Republicans need Democratic support for that, and it’s not clear they’ll make the concessions Democrats are demanding.

Industry lobbyists are particularly targeting provisions in the House and Senate tax bills limiting tax-exempt financing for not-for-profit hospitals and other organizations; repealing the Affordable Care Act’s tax penalty for not buying health insurance; ending corporate tax credits for the cost of clinical trials of orphan drugs; and taxing not-for-profit executive compensation exceeding $1 million.

If the ACA’s insurance mandate is repealed, “our plans will have to evaluate whether they can stay in the individual market or not based on what it does to enrollment and the risk profile of people who choose to stay,” said Margaret Murray, CEO of the Association for Community Affiliated Plans, which represents safety net insurers.

AARP and other consumer lobbying groups are fighting to save the household deduction for high healthcare costs, which the House version of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act would abolish.

Healthcare lobbyists also are warning lawmakers that capping or ending the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes will force many states to cut Medicaid. Beyond that, they say slashing taxes and increasing the federal deficit will trigger immediate Medicare budget sequestration cuts that would hurt providers and patients, particularly in rural and low-income areas.

“One in three rural hospitals are at financial risk of closure, and sequestration would be devastating for them,” said Maggie Elehwany, vice president of government affairs for the National Rural Health Association. “I’d love to say our message is getting through. But Congress is completely tone-deaf on how troubling the situation in rural America is.”

Hospital groups, led by the American Hospital Association, are battling to preserve tax-exempt bond financing for not-for-profit organizations, which the House bill would zero out. While the Senate bill would keep the tax exemption for interest income on new municipal private activity bonds, both the Senate and House bills would prohibit advance re-funding of prior tax-exempt bond issues.

Hospitals say ending or limiting tax-exempt bond financing would jack up their borrowing costs and hurt their ability to make capital improvements, particularly for smaller and midsize hospital systems. The Wisconsin Hospital Association projected that ending tax-exempt bond financing would increase financing costs by about 25% every year.

According to Merritt Research Services, outstanding end-of-year hospital debt totaled nearly $301 billion in long-term bonds and nearly $21 billion in short-term debt. Nearly all of that debt was issued as tax-exempt bonds.

Suggesting a possible compromise, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Tuesday that he saw “a good path going forward” to preserve tax-exempt private activity bonds “that help build and enhance the national infrastructure.”

But Hobson raised questions about Brady’s comments. “What is his definition of infrastructure?” he asked. “It suggests they may move away from a blanket repeal, but it doesn’t tell me where they’re going.”

If Republicans decided not to repeal the tax exemption for municipal bond interest income, however, they would have to scale back some of their pet tax cuts for corporations and wealthy families, even as they feel pressure to ease unpopular provisions such as ending the deductibility of state and local taxes. That could make it hard for hospital lobbyists to gain traction on this issue.

“There are a lot of giveaways in the bills that don’t leave a lot of room to recoup the money you lose,” Hobson said.

Some lobbyists hold out a faint hope that the Republicans’ tax cut effort could collapse as a result of intra-party differences, as did their drive to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act.

One possibility is that Maine Sen. Susan Collins flips and votes no on the tax cut bill emerging from the conference committee if congressional Republicans fail to pass two bipartisan bills she favors to stabilize the individual insurance market.

Collins said she’s received strong assurances from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump that they will support the bills to restore the ACA’s cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers and establish a new federal reinsurance program that would lower premiums.

But the fate of those bills is in doubt, given that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) was noncommittal this week, while House ultraconservatives have come out strongly against them.

Collins conceivably could be joined by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who also said she wants to see the market stabilization bills passed. If Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, who voted no on the tax cut bill over deficit concerns, remains opposed, those three GOP senators could sink the tax bill.

“We’d all like to see Collins pull her vote,” Hobson said. “It was always clear that the deal she cut with McConnell won’t fly on the House side.”

One healthcare lobbyist who didn’t want to be named said there may be a deal in the works for House conservatives to support market-stabilization legislation in exchange for lifting budget sequestration caps on military spending.

But healthcare lobbyists are not holding their breath on winning major changes or seeing the tax bill collapse.

“There are chances they won’t reach a deal,” said Robert Atlas, president of EBG Advisors, which is affiliated with the healthcare law firm Epstein Becker Green. “By the same token, Republicans are so determined to pass something that they might just come together.”

Ryan eyes push for ‘entitlement reform’ in 2018

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House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) on Wednesday said House Republicans will aim to cut spending on Medicare, Medicaid and welfare programs next year as a way to trim the federal deficit.

“We’re going to have to get back next year at entitlement reform, which is how you tackle the debt and the deficit,” Ryan said during an interview on Ross Kaminsky’s talk radio show.

Health-care entitlements such as Medicare and Medicaid “are the big drivers of debt,” Ryan said, “so we spend more time on the health-care entitlements, because that’s really where the problem lies, fiscally speaking.”

Ryan said he’s been speaking privately with President Trump, who is beginning to warm to the idea of slowing the spending growth in entitlements.

During his campaign, Trump repeatedly promised not to cut Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security.

“I think the president is understanding choice and competition works everywhere, especially in Medicare,” Ryan said.

House and Senate Republicans are currently working on their plans for tax reform, which are estimated to add more than $1 trillion to the deficit. Democrats have voiced concerns that the legislation could lead to cuts to the social safety net.

Ryan is one of a growing number of GOP leaders who have mentioned the need for Congress to cut entitlement spending next year.

Last week, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said that once the tax bill was done, “welfare reform” was up next.

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), last week, said “instituting structural changes to Social Security and Medicare for the future” will be the best way to reduce spending and generate economic growth.

Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, told Bloomberg TV that “the most important thing we can do with respect to the national debt, what we need to do, is obviously reform current entitlement programs for future generations.”

Ryan also mentioned that he wants to work on changing the welfare system, and Republicans have in the past expressed a desire to add work requirements to programs such as food stamps.

Speaking on the Senate floor while debating the tax bill last week, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said he had a “rough time wanting to spend billions and billions and trillions of dollars to help people who won’t help themselves, won’t lift a finger and expect the federal government to do everything.”

His comments were echoed by Ryan.

“We have a welfare system that’s trapping people in poverty and effectively paying people not to work,” Ryan said Wednesday. “We’ve got to work on that.”

 

With House conservatives’ resistance, ACA stabilization bills’ prospects get dimmer

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Senate GOP leaders won a key swing vote for their tax bill by pledging to pass bipartisan legislation to shore up the Affordable Care Act. But now it looks like those measures’ chances of becoming law are getting dimmer.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, wants two bills to pass that she hopes will mitigate the effects of a provision in the tax bill that repeals the individual mandate: the Alexander-Murray bill, which would fund cost-sharing reduction payments for two years, and a bill she co-authored with Democrat Bill Nelson, which provides funding for states to establish invisible high-risk pool or reinsurance programs.

Collins voted for the Senate’s version of the tax bill—a critical win for GOP leaders, as they could only lose two votes and it failed to gain her support for previous ACA repeal bills. But she only did so after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell assured her the two ACA stabilization measures would pass.

Yet while some lawmakers previously said those measures could be tacked on to the short-term spending bill Congress aims to pass this week, congressional aides now say it isn’t likely to be included, according to The Wall Street Journal. Further, while House conservatives have indicated strong support for repealing the individual mandate in the final version of the GOP tax bill, they are far from on board with the two ACA stabilization bills.

For example, Ohio Rep. Warren Davidson said he’s a “hard, hard, very hard no,” on the Alexander-Murray bill, per the WSJ article.

House Speaker Paul Ryan could also be a barrier to passing the two bills. His office told a meeting of congressional leadership offices on Monday that he wasn’t part of any deal between Collins and McConnell, The Hill reported. But his office didn’t say outright that it opposed the bills.

For her part, Collins said it will be “very problematic” if the ACA stabilization bills don’t pass, according to the WSJ. She also won’t commit to voting for the final version of the tax bill until she sees what comes out of a conference committee between the House and Senate.

Even if those measures do pass, there have been questions about whether they would do enough to soften the blow of repealing the individual mandate. The Congressional Budget Office has advised that the Alexander-Murray bill would do little to change its prediction that repealing the mandate would increase the uninsured rate and raise premiums.

A new analysis from Avalere found that Collins’ bill could help stabilize the individual market by increasing enrollment and reducing premiums in 2019, but the consulting firm’s experts cautioned that those effects could be overshadowed by repealing the individual mandate.