Roughly a million Texans with government-subsidized health coverage could see a new label on their health insurance cards, and critics say the designation is akin to a “scarlet letter.”
But instead of Hester Prynne’s infamous “A,” insurance cards for Texans with coverage under the federal Affordable Care Act would bear the letter “S,” for subsidy.
Supporters of House Bill 1514 by state Rep. J.D. Sheffield, R-Gatesville, say it’s necessary to standardize insurance cards and clarify the type of health coverage a patient has.
After the one-two punches of both Rhode Island and Vermont moving in exactly the wrong direction (at least before the King v. Burwell SCOTUS decision is announced this summer), my jaw nearly dropped when I read this story out of Texas, of all states:
AUSTIN -- On Wednesday, State Rep. Chris Turner (HD 101-Grand Prairie) filed two bills, HB 818 and HB 817, both creating a state health benefit exchange.
This is an excellent overview of how healthcare pundits, politicos, reporters and industry folks are keeping a very close eye on the ACA exchanges this weekend, as the December 15th deadline for January coverage approaches (well, for most states, that is; 6 states now have deadlines later than the 15th). It's well worth a read, as it goes into the whole "manual renewal" vs. "autorenewal" issue and a whole mess of other stuff.
However, towards the end are two additional data points:
CMS officials, including Marketplace CEO Kevin Counihan have been reassuring about auto-enrollment, said Martin Hickey, CEO of New Mexico’s co-op health plan. “It’s a stressor, but I haven’t seen him biting his fingernails,” Hickey said of Counihan. “But you never know.” His own health plan has had 3,ooo people sign up as of Dec. 10 through HealthCare.gov and the pace is picking up.
A reader forwarded this to me; I ran a search for the organization they referred to and sure enough, it's legit:
Email today from Texas Well and Healthy that might suggest another one of those "we have to craft a uniquely TX solution for a uniquely TX problem because Obamacare sucks" deal. Copy follows...
County Leaders Call for Insurance Solution as Texas Senate Commitee Discusses Alternatives to Medicaid Expansion
Our state leaders may be moving slow on health care, but local leaders are giving them a nudge in the right direction.
Leaders of six of the state's largest counties -- ranging from Harris County's Republican Judge Emmett to Dallas County's Democratic Judge Jenkins -- have joined together to call on the legislature to find a "uniquely Texas solution" to covering uninsured low-wage workers.
The county leaders wrote to the legislature as the Senate Health and Human Services Committee met to discuss Texas alternatives to Medicaid expansion.
I posted something about this a few days ago, but it didn't get nearly as much buzz/attention as I would have figured, probably due to my soft-selling the headline. Anyway, Enroll America has released a report which estimates that there's up to 6.7 million people who could qualify to enroll in a new, ACA-compatible health insurance plan via HC.gov (or their state exchange, depending on where they live).
The current article focuses specifically on Texas, where up to 365,000 people should be eligible to enroll right now, even though it's the "off-season", due to major life changes such as recently getting married, divorced, having a child, losing their job and so on.
Round two of Obamacare enrollment starts Nov. 15. But a group promoting signups wants Texas’ 5 million uninsured adults between the ages of 18 and 64 to know that as many as 365,000 of them are eligible today to go online and enroll in the federally run health insurance marketplace.
Fresh off a Philadelphia Fed survey of manufacturers finding that the Affordable Care Act is acting as a drag on hiring and increasing part-time employment, a Dallas Fed survey finds the much same thing.
Like the Philly Fed survey, it was tacked on to an existing monthly survey of conditions. In this case, a net 23.5% of respondents say the number of workers employed is lower due to the effects of what’s commonly called Obamacare. Part-time work is up, the amount of work outsourced is up, wages and salary compensation per worker is down, other benefits are down, and prices charged are higher.
Like many other Republican-run states, Texas not only refused to set up their own ACA exchange or expand Medicaid, the state government actively sought out to prevent people from enrolling, actually enacting absurdly strict "regulations" to prevent ACA Navigators from doing their job to help people learn about their rights and how to go through the process:
The navigators must register with the state, undergo a background check and fingerprinting, and complete 20 hours of additional training — beyond the 20 to 30 hours of federal training they've already received.
I'm debating whether to actually plug this number into the spreadsheet or not. On the one hand, I'm reluctant to do so without hard official numbers being given (this is just a survey, only runs through mid-March and doesn't include kids anyway).
On the other hand, doing so wouldn't change my total projection of around 7.78 million exchange QHPs; it just reduces the "unsorted" number at the bottom. Plus, I'm almost certain that the March HHS report is going to be released sometime tomorrow (Thursday) anyway, so if I'm wrong, it'll be easy enough to correct it at that point.
I can't really use this number in the spreadsheet since it's less than the total for the state, but this is extremely telling news (besides, how often am I gonna get to post a Texas-specific entry?):
HOUSTON (AP) — More than 177,000 Houston residents have signed up for health insurance through the federal marketplace, far exceeding expectations for the city.
According to an email obtained by The Associated Press, as of April 5 177,825 Houston residents enrolled for insurance under President Barack Obama's signature law. The email was written by Marjorie McColl Petty, the regional director for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in Dallas.
The expectation had been that 138,000 Houston residents would sign up. Petty told Houston officials the numbers reflect a successful 13-county regional effort.
UPDATE: On the down side, I was off by 4% this time around.
On the up side, I UNDERESTIMATED:
Actual Feb. enrollments: 942,833, for a total of 4,242,325 thru 3/01/14.
Sarah Kliff at Vox just announced that the February HHS report is expected to be released today at around 4:00pm. A few items in anticipation of that:
As I've noted several times, I'm projecting the report to total around 902,000 exchange-based private QHP enrollments for the month of February (technically 2/02 - 3/01)
If accurate, this would bring the cumulative total of exchange-based private QHP enrollments to 4.202 million (from 10/1/13 - 3/01/14)
From the data I have, the average daily enrollment rate in February was almost identical to that of January, which had about 1.146 million QHP enrollments. HOWEVER, the January report included five weeks of data (12/28 - 2/01), while the February report will only include four weeks (2/02 - 3/01). Therefore, even at the same daily average, it'll be about 20% lower no matter what.
Don't be surprised if Peter Lee of CoveredCA decides to steal some thunder by announcing that California has enrolled 1,000,000 QHPs all by itself either today or tomorrow. However, that would include the past 10 days, while the HHS number will only run thru 3/01.
If you want to get REALLY specific, call it 902,800 and 4,202,292.
I've been dead-on target 6 times in a row without hyping up my projections beforehand. This time I am hyping myself up beforehand, so I'll probably be way off...but as long as I've UNDERestimated the tally, I'll be perfectly fine with that...
The report will be released in about 5 minutes, but my kid gets home from school in about 10, so it'll be a good 20 minutes before I can really post anything. Feel free to follow Sarah Kliff of Vox in the meantime!
