The Obama administration is projecting that hospitals will face $5.7 billion less in uncompensated care costs than they otherwise would have in the first full year of the Affordable Care Act's coverage expansion.
Millions more people with health insurance means fewer uninsured patients are coming through hospitals' doors. That means fewer costs from bad debt or charity care from people unable to pay their bills, which amounted to about $50 billion for the nation's hospitals in 2012.
OK, so obviously the hospitals are thrilled about this, but what about the rest of us? Well, in theory, those savings should be in turn passed along in the form of lower premiums/co-pays/etc. (or at least a slower rate of increase, anyway):
Thanks to contributor Bob H. for bringing my attention to a new ACA budget study which claims that the Healthcare.Gov federal exchange has cost more than $2 billion to date, and that the total cost of the ACA since 2010 has reached $73 billion:
The total price tag for ObamaCare's main enrollment portal now stands at more than $2 billion, according to a new analysis by Bloomberg Government.
The new total, released Wednesday, includes efforts to construct and then fix HealthCare.gov after serious technical problems threatened to shutter the site last fall.
In all, implementation of the Affordable Care Act has cost more than $73 billion since its enactment in 2010, the analysis found.
I'm not going to get into the "$73 billion" part, since that includes a lot of questionable budget items such as around $14.5 billion of it being exchange premium subsidies (that is, I'm not saying those amounts are wrong, but it's highly questionable whether they should be counted as the "cost" of the law itself). This point is made in the same article by CMS itself:
OK, kind of a snarky headline I realize. This is actually a very good article by the Washington Post's Jason Millman, which goes beyond the actual number of people newly added to the Medicaid rolls since January thanks to the Affordable Care Act (by my count it's up to around either 6.5 million or 9.7 million, depending on whether you include "woodworkers" or not), but the quality of that coverage.
The good news is that, unsurprisingly, people are pretty relieved to finally have decent healthcare coverage, in many cases for the first time in their lives:
Pop Quiz: You're writing (or editing) a news story about a GAO report regarding the security situation at Healthcare.Gov. Which of these passages from the article do you choose for your big, bold-faced headline?
OK, this one doesn't fall so much into the "another ACA attack debunked!" category as the "vastly overblown" category:
Narrow networks were a popular health insurance option on the exchanges in the first enrollment period, with half of all plans for individuals offering limited groups of lower-cost providers, and new research shows consumers generally aren't griping about the products.
...Health insurers have said the healthcare reform law is spurring them to offer more narrow networks, which they say save them money and lead to lower monthly premiums in exchange for a smaller number of in-network hospitals and physicians.
After speaking with several state officials and insurers that offer exchange plans, researchers found that few consumer complaints have emerged to date about the networks' offerings.
“Insurance companies calculated that consumers would be willing to trade greater provider access for lower premiums, and to a large extent, our research confirms that,” said Sabrina Corlette, the report's lead author, in a statement.
Among the five insurance carriers participating in the exchange, premiums will drop on average by 7 percent at Molina Healthcare, 1.5 percent at New Mexico Health Connections and 1 percent at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Mexico, according to the state Office of the Superintendent of Insurance.
The highest, lowest and roughly mid-range monthly payments for HMO health insurance plans offered by companies participating in the New Mexico Health Insurance Exchange. The payments are based on charges for a 50-year-old, non-smoking resident of the Albuquerque metro area for 2015. For more information, go to the exchange website atwww.bewellnm.com.
Premiums will be unchanged at Presbyterian Health Plan. The fifth insurance carrier participating in the exchange, Christus Health Plan, is in its first year.
Rates are lower on the new marketplaces than in the private market
...Health plans available to small businesses on the law’s new health marketplaces are on average about 7 percent cheaper than comparable plans offered elsewhere, according to analysis conducted by a team of researchers at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. For middle-tier plans, for instance, the disparity translates into about $220 in annual premium savings for plans purchased on the SHOP exchanges.
Bringing together two of the best-known brands in insurance, State Farm said it would partner with Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in five states to sell Blues brand individual medical policies when signup begins in November for private coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
The relationship will marshal an army of more than 3,300 State Farm agents to sell Blue Cross plans in Illinois, Texas, Montana, Oklahoma and New Mexico. Financial terms of the deal between State Farm and Health Care Service Corp., the parent of the five Blues plans, weren’t disclosed but executives said State Farm offices, known better for their auto and home insurance offerings, will begin to offer individual health insurance policies beginning Nov. 15 for coverage that will begin as early as Jan. 1, 2015.
Back in May, you may recall that I called attention to an appallingly offensive and cruel law which the Michigan state legislature (fully controlled by the Republican Party) passed which effectively subjects up to 200 rape victims per year to cruel & unusual punishment (and/or a $500 fine) for the "crime" of being, you know, raped:
At first glance, my headline above might seem to have a typo; according to the story itself, the actual increase is a whopping...1.18%, nearly a full percent higher! Busted, right?
Health insurance premiums next year will increase only about 1.18 percent on average statewide next year.
That’s according to the Colorado Division of Insurance after it reviewed and approved 1,072 health insurance plans from 20 carriers that will offer health coverage to consumers and small businesses next year.
