In the case of Democrats using statewide numbers for people with preexisting conditions for votes concerning the AHCA, that’s worthy of Four Pinocchios. They’ve taken high-end estimates for the entire insurance market, even though the law affected only the individual market. Different states also would have had to proactively seek waivers. The Congressional Budget Office found that in states with one-sixth of the U.S. population, there could be turmoil in the insurance markets – but that meant it might be fine in other states. There’s little excuse to apply numbers for the entire insurance market to the much-smaller individual market.
HHS wants to cancel its plans to postpone imposing new ceiling prices for the 340B drug discount program. The agency issued a proposed rulemaking on Wednesday that suggested the long-delayed rule will now be effective Jan. 1, instead of July 1, 2019, as originally announced earlier this year.
HHS has delayed the effective date of the ceiling price rule five times, which would cap the prices drugmakers can charge hospitals that participate in 340B. The American Hospital Association and several other medical trade groups sued the agency last fall to force it to publish the delayed regulations.
November 1st, 2018
The battle over coverage for pre-existing conditions has become a central front in the 2018 midterm elections, but however heated their rhetoric and whatever their positions have been in the past, there is operatively no difference between Republicans and Democrats on the issue.
What I mean by that is no matter who controls Congress at the end of this process, Obamacare’s ban on allowing insurers to deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions is going to remain intact.
November 1st, 2018
Between the election campaign and incidents of terrorism ranging from attempted bombings to a synagogue shooting, an obscure regulatory proposal by the Trump administration has yet to captivate the public’s attention. However, it has the potential to change the way millions of Americans obtain health insurance.
November 1st, 2018
In August 2018, the Trump administration finalized a rule to strengthen short-term plans by allowing individuals to keep them for a period of up to 364 days. This standard is the same one that existed for nearly twenty years, until—eight days before the 2016 election—the Obama administration suddenly prohibited consumers from buying short-term plans for longer than three months at a time. The new rule also provides consumers with the opportunity to renew these plans annually for up to three years.
The new rule is one of several strategies the Trump administration has pursued to offer more affordable options to millions of Americans who were priced out of the insurance market by skyrocketing premiums. Premiums in the individual market more than doubled between 2013 and 2017 and premiums for the benchmark plan in the individual market increased by another 37 percent on average in 2018.
November 1st, 2018
While Obamacare has been neither repealed nor replaced, it is being superseded. As President Donald Trump said, “We will deliver relief to American workers, families, and small businesses, who right now are being crushed by Obamacare, by increasing freedom, choice, and opportunity for the American people.”
The total number of Americans with health insurance rose from 292.3 million in 2016 to 294.6 million in 2017, the Census Bureau reports. Some of the following new reforms have helped 2.3 million more Americans enjoy medical coverage and alternatives under Republican leadership rather than Democrat mismanagement.
November 1st, 2018
Ever since efforts to legislatively repeal Obamacare ended ignominiously with a “thumbs down” from the late Sen. John McCain on the Senate floor, the Trump administration has been hard at work doing what they can to give families more and better healthcare choices than what Obamacare saddled them with. In so doing, they have created several welcome escape hatches from Obamacare, or what Phil Kerpen from American Commitment calls “Making Obamacare Optional.”
November 1st, 2018
Many readers no doubt take comfort in living thousands of miles away from the tax and spending misadventures of Illinois or Connecticut. But fair warning: One of the worst deals in state spending is coming to a red state near you, and that’s expanding Medicaid to adult men above the poverty line. The perversity of spending more on childless men than pregnant women is reason enough to reject expansion, but there are others. Every state that has expanded Medicaid has blown the budget by spending more money on more people. The cost overruns are more than double on average.
November 1st, 2018
Medicaid was designed for providing health care to low-income pregnant women, children, the elderly and the disabled. Expanding it beyond its original purpose is driving a nearly $300 million hole in the Kentucky state budget. Expansion made it harder for Medicaid’s core users to get the care they needed, and harder to reduce waiting lists of children with developmental disabilities who need critical therapeutic services.
These outcomes are not unique to Kentucky. Nationwide, the per-person cost of expanding Medicaid has exceeded projections by 76 percent. Enrollment has nearly doubled original estimates. And predictions about the total cost missed the mark by 157 percent.
If Utahns approve Proposition 3, they’ll be signing up for the same financial disaster.
October 25th, 2018
The its 2019 State of Healthcare and Politics Report from insuranceQuotes.com unveils Americans’ knowledge, views and predictions surrounding the ACA, President Trump’s impact on the law, and the state of healthcare between now and 2020.
According to the report, 41% of Americans say they do not know what healthcare open enrollment is.
Other survey findings include: 38% are unaware that the ACA is still in effect; 24% of Americans say they view the ACA less positively after the 2016 election; and 18% say their view on the ACA have been “more favorable” since the election.
October 25th, 2018