Becerra Pressed On Surprise Billing, Short-Term Plans, Medicare
Lawmakers from both parties pressed HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra over surprise billing implementation, Medicare policy and non-ACA-compliant plans, including the Trump-era short-term plans and Association Health Plans during a wide-ranging hearing on the department’s fiscal 2022 discretionary budget. The former congressman and California attorney general also assured GOP lawmakers that Medicare for All is not on the agenda.
...The House Progressive Caucus has called for the potential $456 billion in savings to be used to add benefits to Medicare, although the caucus also supports making permanent the ACA’s enhanced tax credits. The White House also made clear that it wants the ACA tax credits to remain.
Molina exchange business grew by 302,000 consumers to reach a total 620,000 enrollees in the first quarter, outpacing the company’s earlier 500,000 estimate, growth that CEO Joseph Zubretsky says was driven by strong product design and pricing, higher effectuation rates, lower attrition and the special open enrollment period.
Molina’s marketplace business had a Medical Loss Ratio of 77.3%, which was due to the higher-than-expected direct COVID-related costs as cases surged in many areas.
There's a lot packed into that first paragraph.
First, their ACA enrollment (which presumably includes off-exchange) for Q1 was 24% higher than expected, which is quite an eye-opener.
Florida accounts for nearly one-third of the country’s new Obamacare sign-ups
Florida leads the country in new Obamacare sign-ups during an ongoing six-month special enrollment period announced by President Joe Biden shortly after he took office.
The state saw 264,088 new people enroll in the healthcare.gov marketplace between Feb. 15 and April 30, higher than the number of new enrollees during the shorter enrollment periods of 2020 and 2019 combined, the White House told McClatchy on Tuesday. Florida accounts for nearly a third of all new enrollees so far this year in the entire country.
Most of the article is just a general overview of how the ongoing COVID-19 Special Enrollment Period is doing, but there's two major problems with it.
Several fellow health wonks have chimed in. I spitballed perhaps 95%. Fann puts it at 96-97%. Cynthia Cox of the Kaiser Family Foundation thinks it could be even higher:
The Biden administration said Monday it will provide protections against discrimination in health care based on gender identity and sexual orientation, reversing a policy of its predecessor’s that had been a priority for social conservatives and had infuriated civil liberties advocates.
The reversal is a victory for transgender people and undoes what had been a significant setback in the movement for LGBTQ rights.
The shift pertains to health-care providers and other organizations that receive funding from the Department of Health and Human Services. Civil rights groups had said the Trump administration policy would allow health-care workers and institutions, as well as insurers, to deny services to transgender individuals.
The reversal is the latest step Biden officials are taking to reorient the federal government’s posture on health care, the environment and other policy areas away from the conservative cast of the Trump era, replacing it with a more liberal stance.
Medicaid expansion will not happen in Wyoming this year.
The state’s Senate Labor, Health and Social Services Committee killed a bill Wednesday morning to expand the federal insurance program, which would have insured an estimated 25,000 additional Wyomingites.
Lawmakers have defeated similar proposals for nearly a decade. Advocates hoped this year might be different. Many House Republicans voiced a change of heart after the COVID-19 pandemic and the decline of fossil fuels rocked the state’s economy, leaving many without health coverage. This session was the first in which a bill to expand the program passed a legislative chamber.
Pam MacEwan, CEO Washington Health Benefit Exchange (Exchange), issued the following statement today after the signing of Cascade Care 2.0 into state law:
“Today’s signing of the Cascade Care 2.0 bill sets the stage to improve the quality, availability, and affordability of the health plans offered through Washington Healthplanfinder.
“This bill establishes a state premium assistance program that will benefit over 100,000 low-income Washingtonians struggling to pay for health insurance; increases statewide availability of the state’s first-in-nation public option program; and builds on the success of the high-quality Cascade Care standard plans – that have created average savings of $1,000 in out-of-pocket costs.
Exclusive: Official 2021 #ACA Open Enrollment Period Hits 12.0 Million QHPs For First Time Since 2017
At the time I only had estimated 2021 Open Enrollment Period (OEP) data for several states, but my estimate was confirmed a couple of weeks ago when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued the official 2021 OEP report, which states that the official total number of ACA Qualified Health Plan (QHP) selections for 2021 was 12,004,365 people.
But more than two in five Republicans said they would avoid getting vaccinated if possible, suggesting that President Biden has not succeeded in his effort to depoliticize the vaccines — and leaving open the question of whether the country will be able to achieve herd immunity without a stronger push from Republican leaders to bring their voters on board.
I ran these numbers last month in my write-up speculating about the prospect of Democrats and the Biden Administration effectively "federalizing" ACA Medicaid expansion altogether by raising the FMAP threshold from 90% to 100%, but it's worth a standalone blog post as well.
The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that nearly 2.2 million Americans currently fall into the "Medicaid Gap" in the 12 states which haven't expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act yet. They also estimate that another 1.8 million uninsured Americans are eligible for subsidized ACA exchange plans who would be eligible for Medicaid instead if those state actually did expand Medicaid. That's nearly 4.0 million total.
