A few weeks ago I reported that Indiana's implentation of the ACA's Medicaid expansion provision, which kicked off at the end of January, was already up to 237,000 enrollees.
Industry representatives say Indiana's expanded health care program for low-income residents has functioned smoothly in the months since it was implemented following federal approval.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in January approved expanding the existing Healthy Indiana Plan into a larger program that Gov. Mike Pence has dubbed HIP 2.0. That program uses federal Medicaid funds under President Barack Obama's health care law to cover people with incomes under 138 percent of the federal poverty level.
State enrollment in HIP 2.0 has climbed to nearly 290,000 participants, with about 60 percent of those people under age 40, according to state figures presented Thursday during a public hearing in Indianapolis on the program.
For the first time, the Obama administration has deployed an important new power it has under the Affordable Care Act: proposing to pay doctors and hospitals based on the quality of care they provide, regardless of whether they want to be paid that way.
It rolled out two such programs this week. One would require all hospitals in 75 metropolitan areasto accept a flat fee for the costs associated with a hip or knee replacement — including the costs of surgery, medications, the joint implant and rehabilitation. And if the quality of the care is not judged to be good, Medicare will take back some of the money it paid. Another program would increase or decrease payments tohome health agencies in nine states, depending on how they perform on certain quality measurements.
This story is mainly included for reference if/when I'm able to do a market share/rate increase analysis of Illinois in the future:
Yesterday, after the big quarterly Gallup survey was released showing a total reduction in the uninsured among U.S. adults from 18% in October 2013 down to 11.4% in June 2015, I went ahead and whipped up a more detailed graph which 1) includes the full range starting from 0% (Gallup's official graph cuts off the first 10%, which gives a bit of a false impression of the true situation); 2) includes the 2 key dates: March 2010 (when the ACA was signed into law) and October 2013 (when the ACA exchanges/Medicaid expansion enrollments started); and 3) also includes 2 extremely important color-coded areas: The 3.7 million people caught in the "Medicaid Gap" in 21 Republican-controlled states, and the millions of uninsured, undocumented immigrants nationwide.
Just 3 days ago, I wrote about the changing 2016 rate increase request situation in Connecticut, where Arielle Levin Becker reported that 2 of the state insurance providers were lowering their requested rates ahead of the public regulatory hearings...even though the CT exchange, Access Health CT, is increasing their rates a bit to cover expenses. As a result, the overall weighted average increases being requested dropped a half a point, from 7.7% down to 7.2%, which is pretty darned good, all things considered.
The four companies selling individual health plans through Connecticut’s health insurance exchange have revised their proposals to raise rates in 2016, seeking lower increases than initially proposed.
Last week Oregon became the first state to actually approve their 2016 individual/family and small group market policy rate changes. Yesterday, Kentucky appears to have become the second:
Unfortunately, as you can see, while the average rate request for each company is listed, it isn't easy to find the actual enrollment/market share data for most of them, making it impossible to get a weighted average. In addition, there's an awful lot of "n/a / 0%" entries for some pretty big companies. Usually this means that they're new to the market, but I'm not sure that's the case here.
Anyway, assuming that I have the partial data above accurate, it looks like Kentucky's individual market changes will range from an 11% decrease (for WellCare Health Plans of Kentucky, Inc.) to a wince-inducing 25% increase (for the Kentucky Health CO-OP). I don't know how many are enrolled in WellCare right now, but the CO-OP has 53,000 customers, so expect some shuffling around...except, again, I have no idea what that's a 25.1% increase from.
Breaking: Birth Control Coverage Guaranteed for All — Despite Religious Exemptions
Now free coverage of all forms of birth control is guaranteed for all women, no matter where they work. The Obama administration on Friday issued a workaround to last year’s Hobby Lobby ruling, which gave companies religious exemptions on coverage for certain forms of birth control.
On top of this morning's excellent news from Gallup that the total number of uninsured U.S. adults dropped another 1.2 million people in the 2nd quarter of 2015 (0.5% of adults 18 & older = 0.5% out of appx. 245 million adults = around 1.2 million), the polling firm has released another data drop regarding approval/disapproval of the law, post-King v. Burwell:
On the surface, this isn't really that jaw-dropping; several other national polls have found similar trends, and the Kaiser Family Foundation's most recent survey actually has approval slightly outpacing disapproval. Still, it's always good to see confirmation from another respected source.
In addition, while the Kaiser survey included a fairly large "Don't know/Refused to answer" contingent, Gallup seems to be more forceful about getting leaners to commit: The latest survey only has 5% unlisted.
Furthermore, anyone who enrolled/enrolls between around February 23rd and March 15th (varies by state) will start coverage on April 1st...and then, on May 1st, the bulk of the #ACATaxTime Special Enrollment Period enrollees will be kicking into gear. Don't forget off-exchange enrollees, ongoing Medicaid expansion, etc...I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the national uninsured rate drop to below 12% by April.
The uninsured rate among U.S. adults declined to 11.9% for the first quarter of 2015 -- down one percentage point from the previous quarter and 5.2 points since the end of 2013, just before the Affordable Care Act went into effect. The uninsured rate is the lowest since Gallup and Healthways began tracking it in 2008.
Yesterday I noted that if the Republican Party really wants to damage the Affordable Care Act, they could do so quite easily...byhelping the Affordable Care Act:
Put another way: 11.7 million people selected QHPs during 2015 open enrollment, of which roughly 10.3 million are currently enrolled nationally. If every state had expanded Medicaid as of the beginning of this year, only around 9.5 million people would have selected QHPs and only around 8.4 million would still be enrolled in them today.
That's right: As Sprung put it last March, by refusing Medicaid expansion, red state governors and legislatures drove almost 2 million private plan enrollees to federal exchange.
UPDATE 7/13/15: OK, looks like they've posted a "teaser" of the interview this morning; it's set to air this evening at 6pm; as you can see, in the text version, at least, they did a good job of including several of the key points I brought up, especially the "shop around" factor:
