Last March I wrote an analysis of H.R.1868, the House Democrats bill that comprises the core of the larger H.R.1884 "ACA 2.0" bill. H.R.1884 includes a suite of about a dozen provisions to protect, repair and strengthen the ACA, but the House Dems also broke the larger piece of legislation down into a dozen smaller bills as well.
Some of these "mini-ACA 2.0" bills only make minor improvements to the law, or make improvements in ways which are important but would take a few years to see obvious results. Others, however, make huge improvements and would be immediately obvious, and of those, the single most dramatic and important one is H.R.1868.
The official title is the "Health Care Affordability Act of 2019", but I just call both it and H.R.1884 (the "Protecting Pre-Existing Conditions and Making Health Care More Affordable Act of 2019") by the much simpler and more accurate moniker "ACA 2.0".
!! Azar refuses to promise a coronavirus vaccine will be affordable for anyone:
"We would want to ensure that we work to make it affordable, but we can't control that price, because we need the private sector to invest.. Price controls won't get us there."
If the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommended a coronavirus vaccine, the ACA would require that all insurance plans cover it with no patient cost-sharing. (That wouldn't apply to short-term plans expanded by the Trump administration, which do not comply with ACA rules). https://t.co/OK7SOm22Wh
For years now, I (along with many others) have criticized Bernie Sanders for the big blank section of his "pure" Medicare for All single payer healthcare proposal. He's kind of, sort of given some ideas about how he proposes paying for it in the past, but yesterday he finally released an updated, revised list of additional taxes, loophole cuts and so forth which he claims would cover the total cost.
According to a February 15, 2020 study by epidemiologists at Yale University, the Medicare for All bill that Bernie wrote would save over $450 billion in health care costs and prevent 68,000 unnecessary deaths – each and every year.
“The economy, stupid” is a phrase coined by James Carville in 1992. It is usually mistakenly rendered as “It’s the economy, stupid.” Carville was a strategist in Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign against incumbent George H. W. Bush. His phrase was directed at the campaign’s workers and intended as one of three messages for them to focus on. -- Wikipedia
The latest Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll (considered the gold standards when it comes to national polling on healthcare policy issues) is out, and it's findings aren't terribly surprising to anyone who's been paying attention:
Press Release: NY State of Health Announces Record High Enrollment More than 4.9 Million New Yorkers Enrolled
One in four New Yorkers enrolled through NY State of Health
Enrollment through the Marketplace increased by over 150,000 from last year
ALBANY, N.Y. (February 20, 2020) - NY State of Health, the state’s official health plan Marketplace, today announced that over 4.9 million people, more than one in four New Yorkers, signed up for health coverage through NY State of Health during this year’s Open Enrollment Period. With an increase of 150,000 people over 2019, enrollment is at a record level, including more than 1 million people enrolled in Qualified Health Plans and the Essential Plan. Marketplace enrollment growth is consistent with New York’s declining uninsured rate, which reached a historic low of 4.7 percent. Open Enrollment ran from November 1, 2019, through February 7, 2020.
UPDATE 2/24/20:California and New York have come out with their final, official enrollment numbers, as have Vermont,Rhode Island and the District of Columbia, although the latter three are estimates on my part due to the way they're reporting their enrollment data:
Press Release: HealthSource RI sees another successful Open Enrollment with lower plan rates for 2020
State’s critical market stability initiatives drive decrease in cost for those without financial help
Rhode Island is already seeing the effects of market stability initiatives proposed by Governor Raimondo and enacted by the General Assembly in 2019.
HealthSource RI’s competitive marketplace offered the 2nd lowest-cost benchmark plan nationwide for 2020.
The average monthly cost of a health insurance plan without financial help went down from $441.91 in 2019 to $435.60 in 2020.
HealthSource RI’s individual and family enrollments increased this Open Enrollment, with 32,704 customers enrolled and paid compared to 32,486 last year.
The marketplace saw over 7,000 new enrollees including strong enrollment from the key “young adult” demographic. Nearly 43% of new 2020 customers were “young invincibles” age 18-34, up from 29% percent in HealthSource RI’s renewing population.
HealthSource RI customers took advantage of new customer service tools, including a new webchat service and a search tool that lists which prescription medications are covered by each health insurance plan.
As I explained, the HIT is one of a several taxes/fees which were originally included in the Affordable Care Act which have either never actaully been enforced or whcih have only been enforced sporadically, and which have now been completely eliminated going forward.
The impact of repealing these taxes on the federal deficit/federal debt is obviously not good...this will collectively increase the already-runaway national debt by several hundred billion dollars over the next decade. That's a whole separate discussion.
In the short term, however, this raises a fascinating one-time opportunity for states to step in and generate some much-needed revenue to be used to reduce healthcare costs for tens of thousands of their residents.
