Over the past week or so, I've written several posts explaining how the new ACA 2.0 bill rolled out by the House Democrats would improve the law. So far I've mainly focused on the impact on health insurance policy premiums, since that's the single most obvious improvement.
In particular, I posted an extensive explainer, with colorful graphs and tables, showing how single adults at various ages would fare under ACA 2.0 compared to current law (households with more than one person would follow a similar patter, with the dollar amounts simply being higher across the board).
However, it's probably a good idea for people to also understand how age bands work. The age band is the reason an (unsubsidized) 64-year old pays so much more than a 21-year old.
The full expansion initiative passed last fall, of course, is supposed to cover Utah residents earning up to 138% of the poverty line, or around 150,000 people...without any work requirements.
The bill barreling through the Utah Legislature was “an effort to override the will of the people,” said Matthew Slonaker, the executive director of the Utah Health Policy Project, a nonprofit group that supported the full expansion of Medicaid.
Utah lawmakers, worried that the sales tax increase might not fully cover the costs, are rushing through a bill that would limit the expansion of Medicaid to people with incomes less than or equal to the poverty level, about $12,140 for an individual.
State officials say that the bill, which is estimated to cover 90,000 people, could be on the desk of Gov. Gary R. Herbert, a Republican, in a week or two.
The Trump appointee who oversees Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare quietly directed millions of taxpayer dollars in contracts to Republican communications consultants during her tenure atop the agency — including hiring one well-connected GOP media adviser to bolster her public profile.
Lost amidst all the other overwhelming ACA-related news this week is one other important nugget: The Affordable Care Act's "individual mandate penalty", which was lowered to $0 in December 2017, was still the law of the land until December 31, 2018. It may have been changed at the time, but that change didn't become effective until January 1, 2019.
ELIMINATION OF SHARED RESPONSIBILITY PAYMENT FOR INDIVIDUALS FAILING TO MAINTAIN MINIMUM ESSENTIAL COVERAGE.
(a) In General.--Section 5000A(c) <<NOTE: 26 USC 5000A.>> is amended--
(1) in paragraph (2)(B)(iii), by striking ``2.5 percent'' and inserting ``Zero percent'', and
(2) in paragraph (3)--
(A) by striking ``$695'' in subparagraph (A) and inserting ``$0'', and
(B) by striking subparagraph (D).
(b) <<NOTE: 26 USC 5000A note.>> Effective Date.--
The amendments made by this section shall apply to months beginning after December 31, 2018.
And since I was too swamped with other stuff, I didn't have a chance to write about it until now. A bunch of other outlets have already posted the details, so here's Dylan Scott of Vox.com to save me the trouble:
A federal district judge has blocked Medicaid work requirements approved by the Trump administration in Arkansas and Kentucky.
I left out one tidbit in my latest post, however: There's been a lot of speculation the past two days about the timing of both Trump's DOJ memo formally asking the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals to repeal the entire Affordable Care Act on Monday the 25th and the timing of the House Democrats' ACA 2.0 press conference/bill rollout the very next day on March 26th.
The House Dems announced on Saturday the 23rd that they were scheduling their big ACA 2.0 rollout on Tuesday the 26th.
The other six are directly related to the ACA...these are the six "mini ACA 2.0" bills which cover six of the eleven ACA repairs & improvement provisions included the the larger ACA 2.0 bill introduced yesterday. Here's summaries of all twelve bills being debated today:
Most people know that over the past three years, I've gone from being a fan of Vermont U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders to...well, not being a fan; let's just leave it at that. They also know that while I support an eventual move towards a single payer-based healthcare system, I simply feel that it will have to be achieved via incremental steps (preferably large steps, not baby ones).
I addressed this point at the time in response to earlier attacks on me by MFA purists:
I need to take a moment here to call out progressives who badmouthed and scolded me last week for promoting the House ACA 2.0 bill by insisting that ONLY Bernie's M4A bill will do, and ANYTHING short of that--even in the short term--is unacceptable.
(sigh) Naming-wise, this is actually worse than the title of last year's ACA upgrade bill ("The Undo Sabotage and Expand Affordability of Health Insurance Act", or #USEAHIA), H.R.5155, which I didn't think was possible.
In any event, last year I went with simply calling it "ACA 2.0", which seems even more appropriate today. Others seem to agree:
The bill Democrats are rolling out to shore up Obamacare is called the Protecting Pre-Existing Conditions and Making Healthcare More Affordable Act. I think @charles_gaba calling it ACA 2.0 is going to catch on pretty quickly.
