Tag Archives: Out of Pocket Expenses

1 big thing: Out-of-network coverage is disappearing

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One reason surprise medical bills are going up: Coverage for out-of-network care is going down, according to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Per RWJF:

  • Just 29% of insurance plans in the individual market provide any benefits for out-of-network providers. That’s down from 58% a mere three years ago.
  • Coverage is also declining in the market for small businesses, but not nearly as dramatically — 64% of small-group plans offer some out-of-network coverage, down from 71% in 2015.
  • Those small-group numbers are probably roughly in line with where things stand among large employers’ plans.

Why it matters: The burgeoning controversy over surprise hospital bills stems partly (though not exclusively) from the bills patients receive when they’re treated by an out-of-network provider — even without their knowledge, often within an in-network facility.

  • Out-of-network coverage has obviously never been as generous as in-network coverage (that’s the whole point of creating a network), but as insurers pull back even further, more patients will likely find themselves on the hook for even bigger bills.

 

UnitedHealthcare issues warning to hospitals about out-of-network coverage for ER physicians

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https://www.healthcarefinancenews.com/news/unitedhealthcare-issues-warning-hospitals-about-out-network-coverage-er-physicians?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTUdaa00yUXhZVGhsWlRObSIsInQiOiJSNFQ0ZWR5dDlLeHVVWE9nUEFWcGNwazZDWXorRUJoanpLWHE1UmVEMU1RbjVZSFwvT3pmR0xMMVc0Snp2ZWQzMHlQMHp2c01XbzgwOEdBN1BsSGZJbFhWTnUydnpaWkNKVDlSbGR0aUxYY2Jpbmg0VndqRVNTQVdLTXpqS0RvV28ifQ%3D%3D

 

UnitedHealth plans to update its provider directories to show its beneficiaries those hospitals that use non-participating hospital-based physicians.

WHAT HAPPENED

UnitedHealthcare sent out an advanced notice to more than 700 hospitals that its emergency room contractor, Envision Healthcare, could be out of network starting January 1, 2019. 

WHY IT MATTERS

Dissolving the contract is expected to result in more “surprise bills” for patients who are unaware that their ER doctor, anesthesiologist or radiologist is out-of-network for their insurance coverage.

THE BIGGER TREND

Both hospitals and UnitedHealthcare would bear the brunt of patient complaints, at a time when consumer satisfaction is seen as a priority for value-based care and in rankings that include patient surveys.

UnitedHealth said it plans to update its provider directories to show its beneficiaries those hospitals that use non-participating hospital-based physicians. It is also activating a dedicated hotline for members to call if they receive a surprise bill from Envision and UnitedHealth said it would advocate on their behalf to have the bill waived or reduced.

ON THE RECORD

“A study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows ER physicians are paid on average 297 percent of what Medicare allows,” said Dan Rosenthal, president of UnitedHealthcare Networks in the letter to hospitals. “In comparison, Envision demands to be paid nearly 600 percent of Medicare, two times this amount for ER physician services.”

Envision said by statement, “We have offered United a solution that helps with the affordability of healthcare, and yet United is making egregious demands that will force all of our physicians out of network.  They’ve elected to use data for one group in one market and have presented it as the single source of truth. This is misleading and designed to fit their narrative rather than the reality.”

THEIR TAKE

Envision said there were never any problems until UnitedHealth demanded massive cuts to allow it to stay in-network. It calls the insurer’s letters to its hospital partners “aggressive” and “filled with half-truths and inaccuracies.”

UnitedHealthcare, the country’s largest insurer, said it has offered Envision competitive rates for all of their hospital-based services, similar to what other ER and hospital-based physicians are paid in each market, and given them the opportunity to earn additional reimbursement based on the value they bring to customers.

In May, a court ordered arbitration between the insurer and network provider after dismissing a lawsuit brought by Envision claiming UnitedHealthcare changed its payment rate agreement. Envision charged patients at rates three times higher than it should have, UnitedHealth said. Envision said this was due to out-of-network charges because the insurer refused to bring Envision provider groups into their contract agreement.

OUR TAKE

This is about money, with patients paying the difference and hospitals caught in the middle. A hospital can choose to employ physicians, but many doctors are independent contractors, including emergency room physicians. Since, Envision has its highest concentration of contracts with UnitedHealthcare in Florida, Texas and Arizona and to a lesser extent, in New York, Wisconsin, Georgia, Tennessee and California, both patients and hospitals in those regions are likely to find themselves managing more surprise bills. 

November Offers Major Test of Medicaid Expansion’s Support in Red States

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Several states will hold the first referendum on Obamacare since Congressional Republicans tried and failed to repeal it.

SPEED READ:

  • Four states are voting on Medicaid expansion in November — Idaho, Montana, Nebraska and Utah. 
  • Medicaid expansion is a central tenet of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. It makes people living up to 138 percent of the federal poverty line eligible for Medicaid, the government-run health insurance program for the poor.
  • Only one state, Maine, has approved Medicaid expansion through the ballot box.
  • It is the first time voters will directly weigh in on provisions of the ACA since Congressional Republicans tried to repeal it.

It started with Maine. After years of failed attempts to get Gov. Paul LePage to sign off on Medicaid expansion, residents took to the ballot box and made it the first state where voters passed the health care policy.

It hasn’t been smooth sailing. Maine’s Republican governor has taken every opportunity to block the expansion — even asking the federal government to reject the state’s Medicaid expansion application that the courts made him send.

But the passage alone galvanized health care advocates who wish to see Medicaid expansion in the 14 states that have declined federal money to offer health insurance to the people who fall in a “coverage gap,” where they make too much money to qualify for Medicaid but can’t afford private insurance.

In November, four states are voting on the issue — Idaho, Montana, Nebraska and Utah. The ballot measures will test support for a central tenet of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA) in red states, which make up the bulk of the 14 holdouts. It will be the first referendum on provisions of the ACA since Congressional Republicans tried and failed to repeal it last year.

Supporters of Medicaid expansion see it as a vital part of the social safety net, especially because qualifying for Medicaid in nonexpansion states can be tough. Opponents, however, see expansion as fiscally irresponsible since states will start picking up 10 percent of the costs in 2020.

While the price tag of Medicaid expansion can come with some sticker shock, independent analyses have found that states often save money by insuring people — there are fewer instances of uncompensated care, and people are healthier when they have insurance. According to a 2016 report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 11 states experienced some savings from Medicaid expansion.

In Idaho and Nebraska, there has been no major movement on Medicaid expansion from either the executive or legislative branches for years. Because of Idaho’s historic opposition to Medicaid expansion, and the fact that the ballot measure doesn’t mention how it would be funded, advocates could experience a bit of déjà vu there.

While the federal government initially pays 100 percent of the costs of Medicaid expansion, it eventually hands states a bill for 10 percent. The funding issue is what LePage has been using as a reason to refuse to implement Medicaid expansion in Maine. For his part, Idaho Lt. Gov. Brad Little, the Republican expected to succeed Gov. Butch Otter in November, is against Medicaid expansion but has said he would accept it if it passes.

“Proponents insist that it’ll pay for itself, but entitlement programs are historically costlier than anticipated. I imagine there are going to be some really tough discussions if it passes,” says Fred Birnbaum, vice president of the Idaho Freedom Foundation, which opposes the measure.

Nebraska’s measure also doesn’t have a provision that explicitly says how the state share would be paid for, but supporters don’t believe that should make a difference.

“We modeled our language based on the Maine initiative, so it’s clear and unequivocal,” says Democratic state Sen. Adam Morfeld, who introduced Medicaid expansion bills in the past. “The governor can say he won’t implement it, but we’ll have a court tell him otherwise.”

Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts, who is expected to win reelection in November, has opposed Medicaid expansion since the beginning but said that if it made the ballot, it’s up to the voters to decide.

“That’s honestly the best I could hope for,” says Morfeld.

In Montana and Utah, the questions before voters are a little more complicated.

Montana expanded Medicaid in 2015, but under the deal struck in the state legislature, it is set to expire June 30. Residents will be voting on whether to extend it, and how the state would fund their portion of it. The ballot measure proposes hiking taxes on tobacco products to $2 per pack.

Utah also already passed a bill to expand Medicaid, but it is awaiting federal approval. It would require nondisabled people to work, volunteer or participate in a job training program; the expansion would automatically end if the federal match dipped below 90 percent; and eligibility stops at the poverty line, which is $12,140 for a single person. (The federal government has rejected other states’ requests to limit expansion to people at the poverty line.)

The ballot measure, meanwhile, asks voters to expand Medicaid traditionally — without work requirements or eligibility limits past the federal poverty line. It also asks voters to increase the sales tax to fund the state’s share. It’s unclear what would happen if the ballot measure passes and the federal government approves Utah’s competing Medicaid waiver.

In three of the four states — Nebraska, Montana and Utah — more than $11 million has been spent to sway voters one way or the other. In Nebraska and Utah, supporters have spent $1 million to 2 million while opponents have spent a reported zero dollars. In Montana, the balance is just the opposite: opponents have raised $8 million while supporters have raised just $2 million. In Idaho, the issue has attracted just has $37,067 — all from the supporters’ side.

Only Utah has conducted polling on the issue, which was done in June. The Salt Lake Tribune and the Hinckley Institute of Politics found that 54 percent of voters support the measure, 35 percent oppose it, and the rest are undecided.

“There’s been a lot of discussion in Utah about this, we’ve been having this debate for a couple of years now,” says Danny Harris, associate state director of advocacy at AARP Utah, which is in favor of the ballot measure. “The polling has always been consistently in favor. People are ready for this issue to move forward.”

 

Three-fourths of Medicare Advantage denials overturned on appeal, OIG finds

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https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/three-fourths-of-medicare-advantage-denials-overturned-on-appeal-oig-finds/533463/

Dive Brief:

  • An investigation by the HHS Office of Inspector General found large numbers of overturned denials upon appeal from Medicare Advantage organizations, raising concerns that some needed payments and services aren’t going to providers and patients.
  • Between 2014 and 2016, MAOs reversed 75% of their own denials, or about 216,000 a year, according to a report released Thursday. Additional denials were overturned by independent reviewers at higher levels of the appeals process.
  • The numbers are particularly troubling because of the infrequency with which beneficiaries and providers used the appeals process — for just 1% of denials at the initial appeal level, according to the report. 

Dive Insight:

The findings are important in light of the growing popularity of Medicare Advantage. Payers like the stability of the marketplace, and it’s popular with patients, too. In a recent Avalere Health study, MA beneficiaries with chronic conditions had 23% fewer inpatient stays and 33% fewer emergency department visits than people enrolled in Medicare fee-for-service plans.

That said, neither providers nor patients want to feel like they regularly have to appeal payment or service denials, especially with out-of-pocket costs on the rise.

Of the roughly 216,000 overturned denials, more than 80% were payments to providers for services the beneficiary had already received. The remainder — 18% — were for preauthorization of services not yet rendered.

But while some denials are justified, filing and processing appeals puts a burden on providers, MAOs and beneficiaries, especially those needing immediate care, OIG says. 

“Further, although overturned payment denials do not affect access to services for the associated beneficiaries, the denials may impact future access,” the report states. “Providers may be discouraged from ordering services that are frequently denied — even when medically necessary —to avoid the appeals process.”

OIG also points to CMS audits that show “widespread and persistent” problems with MAO denials of payment and care. In 2015, for instance, CMS cited more than half of audited contracts for inappropriate denials and 45% for sending incomplete denial letters. The latter could hinder efforts to successfully appeal a denial, the report notes.

While the agency imposed penalties and sanctions against the affected MAOs, more action is needed, the HHS watchdog says.

Specifically, OIG recommends CMS boost oversight of MAO contracts, with an eye toward identifying those with high overturn rates, and take enforcement actions when needed. The report also calls on CMS to address chronic issues around inappropriate denials and deficient denial letters and inform beneficiaries of serious MAO violations. 

CMS agreed to all three suggestions.

 

Consolidation in California’s Health System Leads to Higher Prices and Premiums

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https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/journal-article/2018/sep/consolidation-california-health-system-higher-prices

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The Issue

Integration and consolidation among health care providers and health plans has the potential to improve the coordination and quality of patient care. However, when markets become highly concentrated — served by a single or a few large health care organizations — competition is curtailed and health care prices and insurance premiums tend to rise.

In a Commonwealth Fund–supported study in Health Affairs, researchers explored the effect of market consolidation across California between 2010 and 2016 on outpatient visit prices and premiums for individual coverage on the Covered California marketplace. The study focused on two measures of consolidation: the percentage of physicians in practices owned by hospitals and the total market share controlled by hospitals, health plans, and physician practices in a particular area.

What the Study Found

  • The number of physicians in hospital-owned practices increased from 25 percent to 40 percent across select California counties between 2010 and 2016.
  • Hospital employment increased more steeply among specialists than primary care physicians. Among the specialties studied (i.e., cardiology, hematology/oncology, orthopedics, and radiology), employment rose to 54 percent from 20 percent. In comparison, primary care physician employment increased to 38 percent from 26 percent.
  • Premiums for individual coverage rose the most, by 12 percent, in areas with both high consolidation among hospitals and a high percentage of hospital-owned physician practices.
  • Prices of specialty outpatient visits were 9 percent higher in areas with 100 percent hospital-physician employment compared to areas with average levels. Prices of primary care visits were 5 percent higher in areas with high versus average hospital-physician employment.
  • Seven counties were identified as “hot spots,” or markets with concerning levels of health care mergers and consolidation that could be limiting competition.

The Big Picture

The significant price increases in California markets with high hospital-physician employment and hospital consolidation point to the need for careful scrutiny of health care mergers and acquisitions. Additional research is needed to determine if the price increases are tied to improvements in patient care. For instance, if care is more expensive because it is more comprehensive, then overall utilization and spending should decrease. At the same time, regulatory laws and actions may be needed to prevent some health care organizations from attaining unfair market advantages that shut out rivals and raise prices.

The Bottom Line

In California, hospital acquisition of physician practices, particularly in markets with limited hospital competition, is associated with higher prices for outpatient visits and higher insurance premiums on the individual marketplace.

 

 

Congress Is Making Quiet Progress on Drug Costs

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https://www.commonwealthfund.org/blog/2018/congress-making-quiet-progress-drug-costs?omnicid=EALERT1477719&mid=henrykotula@yahoo.com

Progress on drug costs

While the Trump administration has taken small steps to implement its blueprint to lower prescription drug prices, Congress has recently made quiet progress on some policies that could help lower drug costs for patients.

First, both the Senate and House advanced legislation to ban “gag clauses” that prevent pharmacists from telling patients that they can save money on medications by paying for them out of pocket. Certain prescription benefit managers (PBMs) have used gag clauses as part of their formulary design. While this is not a widespread industry practice, a 2016 survey of community pharmacists found that nearly 60 percent had encountered a gag clause in the previous 10 months. Two bills (S. 2553 and H.R. 6733) would prohibit private Medicare plans from instituting gag clauses. A third, related bill (S. 2554) — passed by the Senate on Monday with overwhelming support — prohibits private health insurance plans from using them. While they enable pharmacists to advise patients on how to spend less at the pharmacy counter, these bans won’t necessarily lower the prices of drugs.

Second, a lesser-known provision of S. 2554, added by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), could help lower drug prices by shedding light on patent-settlement agreements between drug manufacturers. Brand-name manufacturers sometimes use these agreements to extend their monopolies and keep drug prices higher by directly and indirectly compensating generic manufacturers for voluntarily delaying generics from coming to market. The Congressional Budget Office has found that setting a standard to rein in these types of settlements would produce $2.4 billion in savings over 10 years.

The HELP committee provision would require manufacturers of biologics (large-molecule drugs) and biosimilars (nearly identical copies of original biologics) to report patent-settlement agreements to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) — an important step in understanding and preventing abuse of what is sometimes referred to as “pay for delay.”

Pay-for-Delay Stalls Drug Competition, Costing Patients Billions

In 2003, Congress required patent-settlement agreements between brand-name and generic small-molecule drug manufacturers to be filed with the FTC for review after they are made. (Currently most drugs sold are small-molecule drugs, but the biologics market is growing rapidly.) Such agreements effectively delay the sale of lower-cost generic drugs by nearly 17 months longer than agreements without payments, according to a 2010 report by the FTC. These anticompetitive agreements cost taxpayers approximately $3.5 billion each year.

In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in FTC v. Actavis that a brand-name drug manufacturer’s payment to a generic competitor to settle patent litigation can violate antitrust law. After the Court’s decision, the number of pay-for-delay agreements declined two years in a row. With drug companies now required to report these settlements to the FTC, the agency has been able to act to protect patients from anticompetitive deals that delay cheaper, generic drug products from coming to market. The FTC reviews reported settlements and, if it determines an agreement violates antitrust law, the agency challenges the agreement in the courts.

For example, in 2008 the FTC sued Cephalon, Inc., for paying four generic companies $300 million to delay marketing of their generic versions of Cephalon’s sleep-disorder drug, Provigil, until 2012. In 2015, the FTC reached a settlement with Cephalon’s owner, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Ltd., which agreed to ending pay-for-delay agreements for all their U.S. operations. The company also paid $1.2 billion in compensation for Cephalon’s anticompetitive behavior.

FTC Reporting Requirement Does Not Apply to Biologic and Biosimilar Manufacturers

The FTC reporting requirement applies only to small-molecule drugs, however, and not to far more expensive biologics and biosimilars. The potential savings of having biosimilars available for sale are significant: even one biosimilar competing against a brand-name biologic can result in a 35 percent lower price for patients and payers. Without delays in competition with brand-name biologics, biosimilars could save $54 billion to $250 billion over 10 years.

But there are concerns that manufacturers are entering into pay-for-delay agreements to keep prices for these drugs artificially high. Since 2015, when the biosimilar pathway was implemented, the FDA has approved 12 biosimilars, yet only three are currently available to patients — likely because of patent litigation and pay-for-delay agreements.

FTC Review Is Part of the Solution

In his remarks upon releasing the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Biosimilars Action Plan in July, FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb noted the FTC’s key role in monitoring U.S. markets to protect consumers from anticompetitive behaviors, including those of prescription drug manufacturers. He also pointed out the patent litigation tactics manufacturers use to delay biosimilar competition.

As it does for the small-molecule drug market, the FTC can play a proactive role in monitoring what is happening in the biologic and biosimilar markets. At a workshop on drug pricing held last year, acting FTC chair Maureen Ohlhausen said that while her agency has been making progress in eliminating pay-for-delay agreements, it has not seen the last of them. She said they will remain a target. But to move forward, the FTC needs clearer authority to review patent settlements between biologic and biosimilar manufacturers.

With Senate passage of S. 2554 and its FTC reporting provision, Congress has taken an important step in encouraging a robust biosimilar market. (While the House has not passed a similar measure, the Senate bill could be added to a reconciliation of the House and Senate gag clause bills.) Engaging all the relevant market regulators — including the FTC, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the FDA — will inject needed competition into this nascent market and help lower drug prices for U.S. consumers.

 

How hospitals protect high prices

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Large hospital systems don’t command high prices just because patients like them, or just because they have strong market share. There’s also another big reason: their contracts with insurance companies actively prohibit the sort of competitive pressures a free market is supposed to support.

“The free market has been distorted in an unhealthy way,” health care consultant Stuart Piltch told the Wall Street Journal’s Anna Wilde Mathews for this deep dive into hospitals’ pricing practices.

How it works: Hospital systems are consolidating rapidly and buying up physicians’ practices (which charge higher prices once they’re part of a hospital).

On top of that, per WSJ: Hospitals’ deals with insurance companies “use an array of secret contract terms to protect their turf and block efforts to curb health-care costs.”

  • Some hospitals do not allow their prices to be posted on the comparison-shopping sites insurers provide to their customers.
  • They often require insurers to cover every facility or doctor the hospital owns, and prohibit insurers from offering incentives — like lower copays — for patients to use less expensive competitors.
  • When Walmart, the country’s biggest private employer, wanted to exclude the lowest-quality 5% of providers from its network, its insurers couldn’t do so because of their hospital contracts.

The other side: Hospital executives told the Journal that mergers don’t drive higher prices, and reiterated their position that hospitals have to collect higher payments from private insurance to make up for the lower rates they get from Medicare and Medicaid.

My thought bubble: High-deductible health plans are increasingly popular, in part, because of the idea that patients will use their purchasing power to drive a more efficient system overall.

  • But if Walmart doesn’t have enough market power to actually penalize low-quality providers, you and I definitely don’t, either — especially if we can’t find out what the prices are, and especially if we only have one hospital to choose from in the first place.

Go deeper: Think drug costs are bad? Try hospital prices

 

 

The Health 202: The rate of people without health insurance is creeping upward

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-health-202/2018/09/13/the-health-202-the-rate-of-people-without-health-insurance-is-creeping-upward/5b99569b1b326b47ec95958c/?utm_term=.ae9e8af79dd2

 

THE PROGNOSIS

New Census Bureau data on the number of uninsured Americans is either a testament to the resiliency of the Affordable Care Act or a sign that President Trump’s anti-ACA rhetoric and policies are starting to work.

As our colleague Jeff Stein reported Wednesday, there was a slight uptick in the number of Americans without health insurance in 2017 compared to 2016, even though that number essentially remained statistically flat. Still, the fact that uninsured rate went up at all, by about 400,000 people, marks the first time since the ACA’s implementation that the uninsured rate didn’t drop. 

Supporters of the ACA worry the news marks the beginning of a trend, especially when some of Trump administration policies intended to circumvent the ACA go into effect next year.

Ahead of open enrollment last year, the Trump administration dramatically decreased funding for any Obamacare outreach or advertising, limited resources for “navigators” who help people find an insurance plan, and shortened the window for people to sign up for insurance from three months to six weeks in states that use a federally run marketplace.

“Even with all of that, health coverage stayed steady. But at the same time, we’d like to see further progress in the rate of the uninsured,” said Judith Solomon of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

It’s part of a pattern to weaken the 2010 health-care law known as Obamacare. After the GOP Congress failed to repeal and replace the ACA last summer, the Trump administration moved to dilute the law in other ways: including signing off on a plan to eliminate the individual mandate penalty next year; allowing individuals to buy skimpier, short-term health plans without certain coverage requirements under Obamacare; and seeking to allow states to put conditions on Medicaid coverage.

Some of the most prominent health care organizations in the country came together this morning to voice their disapproval of those short-term plans — including the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Heart Association, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the National Women’s Law Center, the , American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and Families USA.

“The Administration’s decision to expand short-term health plans will leave cancer patients and survivors with higher premiums and fewer insurance options,” said Dr. Gwen Nichols, chief medical officer of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

The groups’ statements, compiled and released by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), are in support of the senator’s effort to have Congress rescind the White House regulation. Nearly every Democratic senator has signed a resolution of disapproval to overturn it.

The census data reflects trends that started last year, when the administration’s policies had yet to be implemented. Fourteen states saw their uninsured populations rise in 2017. The only three states that didn’t see a spike in that number were New York, California and Louisiana. The first two aren’t surprising given those states’ robust efforts to enroll their own residents, while Louisiana expanded Medicaid in June 2016 so its decrease represents those low-income individuals who now have government coverage.

Medicaid expansion in most of the 33 states and D.C. that have done so under the ACA has predictably decreased the number of people without coverage. The uninsured rate last year in states with an expanded Medicaid program was 6.6 percent compared to 12.2 percent in non-expansion states — a gap that has only continued to grow since 2013.

To be fair, as Larry Levitt, senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, pointed out on Twitter: the uninsured rate started leveling off before the Trump administration started its work. But Levitt suggested the uninsured rate may really rise in 2019 when elimination of the individual mandate penalty takes effect. Moreover, states are increasingly taking the White House up on its suggestion to add work requirements to their Medicaid programs — in just the first three months of it being implemented in Arkansas, more than 4,000 people were jettisoned from the rolls for failure to comply.

Matthew Fiedler, a health-policy expert at the Brookings Institution, agreed with Levitt’s assessment, noting that the bulk of the people who were uninsured pre-ACA have already been enrolled  in the program. He contended that if policy had remained static, there would likely have been a modest decline instead of similar increase in the uninsured rate — though not a dramatic one. The real effects, he said, of the Trump administration’s efforts to chip away at the ACA are still to come. 

“I don’t think the right takeaway is that none of the policy changes will have a negative effect. I think they will going forward, we just haven’t seen that yet,” he said. “I think if your goal is to evaluate the ACA, I think the right takeaway is that there was a lot of progress, but more policy progress to be made.”

Of course, Democrats and Republicans have disparate views on how to get there. Democrats are now pushing for a public option or a universal health care system in which the government would foot the bill for many health-care costs. A lot of them feel  the ACA “got us roughly 40 percent there and established a framework for lawmakers to make that progress going forward,” Fiedler said. That’s why we’re now seeing so many Democratic candidates and lawmakers embracing some iteration of a “Medicare for all” program.  

Republicans still criticize the ACA as vast government overreach and are vowing they will take another stab at repealing it should they maintain the congressional majorities after the November midterms.

“We made an effort to fully repeal and replace ObamaCare and we’ll continue,” Vice President Pence said while campaigning for Baldwin’s opponent, Leah Vukmir, if the GOP performs well in the midterms.

One additional interesting data point from the census is ages at which there was the greatest increases or decreases in the uninsured rate. As highlighted in the chart above, rates of those without insurance rose at ages 18 and 19 — when children are no longer eligible for the Children’s Health Insurance Program; and for those between ages 25 and 26 — when children no longer qualify for their parents’ insurance. The uninsured rate dropped, however, for those aged 64 and 65 — when adults are eligible for Medicare.

The greatest spike in those without insurance was documented for 26 year olds. That’s likely because young adults are typically healthier and feel less urgency to pay for insurance when they lose coverage under their family’s plan.

As noted by the New York Times’ Margot Sanger Katz on Twitter, these stats show just how crucial government programs and laws have been in providing health coverage to Americans:

Is Obamacare Constitutional? The Battle Begins Again

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http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2018/09/05/Obamacare-Constitutional-Battle-Begins-Again

 

The debate over the Affordable Care Act entered a new phase Wednesday as a federal court in Texas began hearing oral arguments in a lawsuit brought by 20 Republican-led states challenging the constitutionality of the 2010 law.

Eighteen Republican state attorneys general and two GOP governors bringing the suit argue that the law’s individual mandate was rendered unconstitutional when Congress lowered the penalty for individuals who don’t buy coverage to zero.

The Supreme Court, in upholding the law in 2012, deemed that penalty a tax and thus a valid and legal exercise of Congress’ power of the purse. The lawsuit claims that the law is no longer constitutional because the zeroed-out penalty can no longer raise revenue. “It’s nothing but a hollow shell because its core has been invalidated,” said Misha Tseytlin, Wisconsin’s solicitor general.

The plaintiffs also claim that this means the entire ACA — and, in particular, its protections for patients with pre-existing conditions looking to buy insurance — must be struck down because the mandate can’t be severed from the rest of the law. The Trump Justice Department decided not to defend the ACA in the case.

What a Kavanaugh Confirmation Might Mean

The case, which legal experts see as a long shot, may still wind up before the Supreme Court — which is why Democrats have brought up Obamacare and its protections for patients with pre-existing conditions in this week’s confirmation hearing for Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s nominee to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy.

“Kavanaugh has signaled in private meetings with Senate Democrats that he is skeptical of some of the legal claims being asserted in the latest GOP-led effort to overturn the Affordable Care Act,” the Los Angeles Times’ Jennifer Haberkorn reported last week. Three Democrats in the meetings told the Times that Kavanaugh suggested that if one piece of the law is struck down, the rest of the law doesn’t necessarily have to fall with it.

But that may not be enough to assuage Democratic fears that Kavanaugh could be the deciding Supreme Court vote against Obamacare. “Democrats are more concerned about Kavanaugh’s past writings on expansive presidential powers, which they say could lead to his supporting efforts by the Trump administration to dismantle the health-care law without Congress,” The Washington Post’s Colby Itkowitz notes.

Where Public Opinion Stands

The political debate over Obamacare has shifted as public perception of the law has improved. The latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll, released Wednesday, finds that 50 percent now view the law favorably while 40 percent see it unfavorably, with the divide still falling along partisan lines. Just under 80 percent of Democrats support the law, while a similar percentage of Republicans oppose it.

That may be why Republicans still view repealing the law as a potent issue with their base. Vice President Mike Pence, in Wisconsin last week to campaign for Senate candidate Leah Vukmir, said the GOP push to repeal and replace the health care law was still alive: “We made an effort to fully repeal and replace Obamacare and we’ll continue, with Leah Vukmir in the Senate, we’ll continue to go back to that,” he told reporters. With Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) replacing John McCain, a critical vote against the GOP’s 2017 Obamacare repeal bill, there has been chatter about another potential repeal effort — though Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell effectively shot that down on Wednesday.

In the meantime, open enrollment on the ACA exchanges is set to begin on November 1, with the Trump administration once again providing reduced funding for outreach groups that help people enroll. A recent report by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office criticized the administration’s management of Obamacare signup periods.