I was kind of hoping that this morning's Gallup uninsured rate news would include a monthly update for July; instead, it only runs through the end of June, the same quarterly survey results that they released a month ago. Then again, things probably didn't change much in July.
Instead, this time they've broken the numbers out by state:
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Arkansas and Kentucky continue to have the sharpest reductions in their uninsured rates since the healthcare law took effect at the beginning of 2014. Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington join them as states that have at least a 10-percentage-point reduction in uninsured rates.
Hmmm...the headline looks bad, but when you read further it's clearly a matter of perspective more than anything else:
Maryland's health insurance exchange improperly billed the federal government $28.4 million, a Department of Health and Human Services audit reported Friday.
An inspector general's probe found a lack of oversight and internal controls, not criminal wrongdoing, was the cause of the exchange's problems since the marketplace opened in 2013.
Two late-breaking news items, one negative, the other potentially positive:
Arkansas:The good news a few weeks ago was that newly-elected Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson did not kill off AR's unique "private option" Medicaid expansion program as many had feared; instead, he actually proposed extending it pretty much as is for another 2 years, to the relief of decent folks, and the state legislature seemed to be OK with that (another surprise).
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) - Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas has signed legislation that will end by 2017 the state’s innovative but controversial adaptation of the Affordable Care Act, which has provided nearly 190,000 residents with health coverage.
David Ramsey has the full skinny on the unpleasant situation in Arkansas, where their "private option" Medicaid expansion program, which was always weird with a beard to begin with, is very much at risk of collapsing altogether:
Well, here we go again. The legislature is once again ready to debate the private option – the state’s unique version of Medicaid expansion, which uses funds available via the Affordable Care Act to purchase private health insurance for low-income Arkansans. Gov. Asa Hutchinson will take a long-awaited position on the policy in a speech at UAMS tomorrow morning. Then it will be up to the legislature. Health insurance for more than 200,000 Arkansans is at stake. Here are some keys to remember as the debate unfolds tomorrow and in the coming weeks.
The short version: The AR program has to be re-approved by the legislature every year, and requires a 75% majority to do so, so it's a wonder that it's survived this long, frankly.
The Associated Press reported Sunday that newly elected Republican. Gov. Asa Hutchinson is expected to address the program, which uses Medicaid dollars to pay for private coverage, in a speech this week. Arkansas's plan must be re-approved every year.
The program is contending with Hutchinson and a batch of newly elected Republican lawmakers who ran against it. The funding must be approved by three-fourths of the state legislature every year. As TPM previously reported, getting approval in 2014 required a significant amount of horse-trading and deal-making under Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe.
...Even if Hutchinson agrees to keep the so-called private option, he is expected to propose more conservative-minded changes. Senate President Jonathan Dismang told the AP that Medicaid expansion "is not going to exist in its current form."
The good news: Enrollment in the ACA private Medicaid option program is up to 218K, about 7,000 higher than it was as of mid-October.The bad news: With the state legislature & governor's office being completely overrun by Republicans, the future of the program isn't looking great:
The other day I noted that Republican Congressman Tom Cotton of Arkansas, currently in a heated battle with U.S. Senator Mark Pryor to take Pryor's seat, is proposing not only stripping healthcare from the 200,000 people in his state who have gained healthcare this year thanks to the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid expanion provision (the "private option" in AR) as well as 40,000 people who are paying for policies via the ACA exchange, but is going even further by pushing for half of the pre-Obamacare Medicaid/CHIP budget to be slashed.
This would effectively result in up to 20% of the state's entire population losing their healthcare coverage...every one of whom is either poor or barely middle-class at best.
First, I just want to take a minute to note that over the past year, I've discovered that while there's lots of good reporting on the ACA nationally, there are certain states which have one particular person who's the "go to" journalist for all things Obamacare-related.
Boy, this syndrome of Republicans seemingly forgetting that repealing Obamacare would mean that hundreds of thousands of the very people they're hoping will vote for them would have their shiny new healthcare coverage torn away from them seems to be spreading fast. I'm calling it "repealnesia".
