President Barack Obama has revived his endorsement of a government-run “public option” health insurance program that would compete with private plans on the Affordable Care Act’s exchange marketplaces.
(MOOP: Maximum Out-of-Pocket expense; please forgive my Seinfeld reference.)
When it comes to healthcare policy cost trends, my main focus has been on the average premium rate increases, which currently look (if approved as requested) like they'll go up around 22% on average next year on the individual market (perhaps half that for the small group market).
However, the other major cause of hand-wringing when it comes to healthcare costs these days are deductibles and co-pays...the out-of-pocket expenses which people may have to pay in addition to their premiums. Again, co-pays are a flat fee (usually $30-$50) which you have to pay for many doctor visits, while deductibles are the amount which you may have to pay towards various healthcare treatments/services before the insurance carrier actually starts to chip in their 60-90% of the bill. I don't think co-pays have really changed much over the years, but a whole lot of people feel that deductibles have shot up a lot since the ACA went into effect.
This is actually the second time this has happened. The first was over a year ago, when CATO Institute ACA Attack Dog Michael Cannon used my work to testify before a U.S. Senate committee how many millions of people would be screwed over by a plaintiff win in King v. Burwell. This was kind of interesting, considering that he was using that fact to support a plaintiff win in King v. Burwell; from his perspective, over 6 million people losing their APTC assistance would have actually been a positive thing. Conservatives are strange like that. Thankfully, the Supreme Court ruled against the plaintiffs, which made the whole thing moot, but whatever.
Testimony of Joel C. White, President, Council for Affordable Health Coverage
Committee on Ways and Means Hearing on Rising Health Insurance Premiums Under the Affordable Care Act • July 12, 2016
Over the weekend, Hillary Clinton rolled out her official campaign healthcare platform. Much fuss is being made over the fact that it includes support for a Public Option, although as I noted at the time, that's hardly news...since she's consistently supported one since at least 2008.
As for the rest of the proposal, there's a whole lot to like...even if your name is Bernie Sanders.
Almost exactly 1 year ago, both Andrew Sprung and I realized that due to an overlap in two provisions of the ACA, a significant chunk of exchange enrollees would actually be eligible for Medicaid instead of a private QHP...if the remaining Republican holdout states were to stop being jackasses and expand the program already.
Why? Because while ACA Medicaid expansion covers people up to 138% of the Federal Poverty Line, QHP financial assistance applies to those with incomes between 100-400% of the FPL. In other words, anyone enrolled in a private exchange policy between 100-138% FPL in a NON-expansion state would automatically become eligible for Medicaid instead the moment that state expanded their Medicaid program via the ACA.
Unfortunately, there was no way of knowing exactly how many people this applied to, because until now, the HHS Dept. only broke out exchange enrollee income brackets into 50% chunks (ie, they listed 100-150% FPL, but not 100-138%).
OK, this is a nice early Christmas present to data geeks like myself (which is ironic, considering that I'm Jewish). Shortly after releasing the 2016 First Quarter Effectuated Enrollment Report, the CMS division of the HHS Dept. has released that data in Excel spreadsheet format...along with the previous 6 quarterly reports. This is nice, but not that huge since this data was already available.
As I do every three months, I'm reformatting their data in a more relevant format, since Gallup seems to be determined not to show the full Y-axis on their graphs (see bottom of entry for original). In addition, I've added some other key data points: Q1 2010 (when the ACA was actually signed into law) and Q3 2013 (when the ACA exchanges and Medicaid Expansion programs launched). Finally, I've added 3 color-coded sections, showing three major categories of the uninsured: Adults who are already eligible for Medicaid but haven't actually enrolled in the program yet; undocumented immigrants who aren't eligible for any taxpayer-funded coverage (or even for full-price exchange-based policies); and the 2.8 million people still caught in the "Medicaid Gap" across 19 states which haven't expanded the program yet. Note that the Medicaid Gap has shrunk from around 5 million in 2014 as a half-dozen or so states have come around; the other two groups may have gone up or down since 2014.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Health insurance costs for about 240,000 Nevadans who buy individual or small-group plans are expected to rise next year, and state officials want consumers to offer feedback before the proposed rates are locked in in coming weeks.
Emails released last week by the State Department that were found on Mrs. Clinton’s private server show that she was keenly interested in the administration’s push to win passage of the health care law.
...The email messages show that throughout the fall of 2009, as the health care push entered a decisive phase, Mrs. Clinton lobbied some members of Congress for votes and even debated sometimes-esoteric policy proposals with aides, some of whom had worked with her in the White House when she was first lady, after her own failed attempt to push a national health care overhaul.
...Congressional officials who worked on the Affordable Care Act said that Mrs. Clinton was an important and effective advocate.
FIRST THINGS FIRST: My deepest sympathies to the families, friends and co-workers of the 5 police officers murdered in Dallas last night (as well as Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and all other victims of gun violence)...and my wishes for a full and speedy recovery to the other seven officers who were shot.
This is a pretty grim topic, but given how much misinformation is flying around out there, including a lot of statistics and numbers, it's important to get this stuff right.
Last October, I wrote an entry which focused on an interesting chart posted by National Review Online regarding the downward trend of gun homicides vs. the upward trend of gun sales over the past couple of decades. My conclusion was that NRO's main claim was accurate...but that they had massively exaggerated the degree to which it was true.
Earlier this evening, someone on Twitter posted the following graphic, which has been retweeted over a thousand times as of this writing:
