"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." --P.J. O'Rourke, Parliment of Whores
As I noted on Friday, Donald Trump's executive order essentially orders the incoming HHS Secretary (presumably Tom Price), along with other relevant agency heads, to do everything in their power to sabotage the ACA regardless of any repeal legislation (whether partial or total) on the part of Congress. Since the ACA grants the HHS Secretary pretty wide authority about how (and whether) to enforce various components of the law, this gives ample room for the Trump administration to make the individual mandate (among other ACA provisions) effectively meaningless.
Trump also issued a memo to all agencies requesting that they begin to "ease the burden of Obamacare as we transition from repeal to replace," Spicer said. He declined to provide specifics on what various agencies might do in response to the president's directive.
HOWEVER, David Anderson (formerly Richard Mayhew) notes that Section 2, which instructs the HHS Secretary to "waive, defer, grant exemptions from or delay" any "fiscal burdens" o sounds an awful lot like telling them to be absurdly lenient regarding granting "hardship exemptions" from the individual mandate:
@annaedney@ZTracer yes individual mandate exemptions will be passed out like pacifiers at a rave
Well, Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn, the Majority Senate Whip (and therefore one of the biggest shots in the Senate) shot off quite a promise about the concerns regarding up to 32 million people potentially losing their healthcare coverage in the event the ACA is repealed:
One of the top concerns is what will happen to individuals who became eligible for Medicaid with its expansion under Obamacare. The Senate's No. 2 Republican, however, promised that no one who got coverage under Medicaid expansion will lose it.
When Conrnyn was asked if he was concerned about people who've benefited from Medicaid expansion losing coverage, he said it was a shared concern.
I've decided that for all future ACA enrollment data reports, I'm going to tack on "...on brink of possible ACA repeal" to the headline. Seems appropriate.
It's been quite awhile since I've written much of anything about the ACA's SHOP programs, which are the small business counterpart to the individual/family exchanges. The reason is pretty simple: SHOP enrollment is mostly a rounding error compared to either the ACA's Individual exchange enrollments or Medicaid expansion numbers.
SHOP enrollment (a mere 120K - 170K nationally, as far as I can tell) is even dwarfed by BHP program enrollment (around 700,000)...and that's only available in 2 states (Minnesota and New York). Heck, I don't even bother tracking them on my spreadsheets or graphs (I tried in 2014 but gave up on it the following year).
Record Number of Idahoans Select Insurance through Your Health Idaho
Lawmakers Get Update on State’s Health Insurance Exchange
BOISE, Idaho – Your Health Idaho (YHI) executive director Pat Kelly went before lawmakers on Wednesday to give them an update on the third year of operations for Idaho’s state-based health insurance exchange. YHI set new records for enrollment during 2016 and led state-based exchanges across the country in per capita enrollment.
“Lawmakers’ choice to keep the federal government out of Idaho’s health insurance decisions and to do things our way has benefited Idaho immensely,” said Kelly. “Your Health Idaho gives consumers options when it comes to selecting a health insurance plan and we keep more money in Idahoans’ pockets by having lower assessment fees than the federal government.”
In federally managed states, consumer fees are set at 3.5percent. In 2016, YHI’s board of directors set the state’s assessment fee at 1.99 percent. To date, lower health insurance assessment fees have saved Idahoans more than $15 million.
I, and many others, have suggested (sometimes jokingly, sometimes not) that Donald Trump and the GOP's "terrific!" replacement for the Affordable Care Act could very well be to simply rebrand it as "TrumpCare", declare victory and call it a day.
I was debating whether to hold off on doing so yet again until after January 31st, since that's the last day of the 2017 Open Enrollment Period...but upon further reflection, today is really more appropriate.
I've committed to keeping the site operating through at least April 30, 2017...which is also around the point that pretty much all of the final reports from HHS, CMS, ASPE and so forth documenting the OE4 numbers should have been released. I'm also assuming that we'll have some idea about just where the hell the ACA repeal/replacement direction is at that point...although who the hell knows?
Anyway, the answer to the question "Where do we go from here?" is, quite simply...beats the fuck out of me.
To everyone who has donated in the past...or submitted data, or offered suggestions, or reposted/retweeted links to the site over the past 3 1/2 years...thank you.
I'm not closing up shop or anything (yet)...but if anyone's in a position to pony up a few bucks to help keep the site going for as long as possible, this is as good a time as any to do so.
Not sure if the sender wants public credit or not, but a few Republican Goverors have some things to say about repealing the Affordable Care Act...especially Medicaid expansion:
Today, Republican Governors will meet with GOP Congressional leaders in DC to discuss – you guessed it –the Affordable Care Act. Medicaid expansion is a key factor in this discussion because, as Governors will tell you, Medicaid expansion is leading to lower uninsured rates, higher rates of care, and critical treatment for people fighting opioid use disorders. And if Republicans repeal the ACA without a replacement plan in the same bill, CBO would score a subsequent bill restoring Medicaid expansion funding as an almost $1 trillion spending increase over 10 years. Interestingly, a number of GOP Senators broke with their party on expansion related vote-a-rama measures last week, and Governors from both parties have spoken out about this issue, as well as about the dangers of repeal and delay.
ATTENDING TODAY’S MEETING WITH REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL LEADERS:
OK, the guest host is actually Cliff Schecter, but I'll be a guest on the Leslie Marshall radio talk show this afternoon from 3:00 - 3:30pm EST today, talking ACA, repeal and so forth.
OK, given the impending End of the World As We Know it (and, on a smaller scale, the potential End of the Affordable Care Act), this is a pretty minor thing, but worth noting.
This afternoon I did a write-up about today's Week 10/11 HealthCare.Gov Snapshot Report, which showed nearly flat enrollment growth from 12/31 to 1/14...two solid weeks with barely 64,000 additional signups across 39 states. As I noted, this particular stretch of Open Enrollment was expected to be pretty quiet, but even so, the numbers were still far lower than I expected.
