Medical Risk Pools, ACA/Medicaid Waviers, Hypocrite State Senator, CMC Director, CSRs, and Tom Price
Charles Gaba: Why Risk Pools are Bad
Charles Gaba at ACA Signups.net has an excellent explanation on how Risk Pools work and how they harm those amongst us who depend upon a community rating system to balance out cost.
Michigan Medicaid Wavier Strikes at the Poor
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported on how Michigan’s Medicaid Proposal would lead to “Large Coverage Losses” harming Low Income Workers.
The coverage reduction in Michigan would be in the range of 150,000 people. Those impacted would lose coverage Michigan’s proposal and would also be denied coverage for a year after they were eligible for coverage once they met the the work requirement. It is called revenge. Many of the Michigan Medicaid enrollees subject to the new policy already work in unstable jobs with fluctuating hours, in industries like retail, restaurant work, home health, construction, or in seasonal jobs such as in the state’s tourism industry. The Michigan Senate Fiscal Agency initially recommended the state squirrel away the excess from the federal subsidy to extend the ability of the state to cover Medicaid expenditures until 2027.
Cities such as Michigan’s Detroit with unemployment higher than 8.5% would still be ineligible for unemployment as the county they reside in has an unemployment rate lower than 8.5%. The determination is county based. 15 of 17 counties with Unemployment hire than 8.5% are under Republican legislators with the remaining 2 being under Democrat legislators.
The same state agency estimates it would cost the state between $20 million and $30 million a year to administer a work requirement and with an increased number of uninsured would result in increased uncompensated care provided by hospitals and in the end increase state costs for public hospitals. I suspect the state spent the excess Medicaid funds.
One Hypocritical Michigan State Senator
Allow me to introduce you to “I am nauseated with the passage of the Medicaid Expansion in Michigan,” Michigan State Senator Joseph Hune.
In 2012, first term Michigan State Senator Joseph Hune voted ‘yea’ for life time healthcare insurance coverage without contribution by present Senators (himself included).
One year later, Michigan State Senator Joseph Hune opposed passage of the Medicaid Expansion. “This is simply bad policy. I am utterly disappointed in this legislation, I voted no because I could not stomach pushing this garbage forward.”
In 2018, Senator Joe Hune is no longer nauseated as the Republican legislature passed a bill requiring all Michigan able-bodied-people to work 29 hours per week. The bill does not take into account people with disorders or illness which may prevent them from working 29 hours per week. Of course Joe Hume who has worked very little outside of government voted “Yea.”
This pudgy face is a self declared expert on working in the private sector although he never did.
CMS Administrator Seema Verma
April 30, 2018 MedPage Today editorial entitled “CMS Chief Slams Administration Critics, Obamacare ‘failing long before Donald Trump became president.”
“‘Health insurers have fled the exchange markets after losing millions of dollars’, ‘half the counties in America, and 10 states in our country, don’t even have a choice of health insurer’, ‘ Congress repealed the mandate’, ‘with one insurer offering policies, half of the counties in America and 10 states in our country do not have a choice of health insurer’.” etc., etc. etc. None of this is Trump’s or Republican’s fault.
Unfortunately Ms. Verma, it is Trumps and Republican’s fault. The only thing you can blame Obama and Democrats for is not making sure Congress allocated the money through Congress. From day one of the Obama administration, Republicans made it their objective to block everything Obama did and make him a one term president. From day one of Trump’s administration, Trump has over turned anything he could by Executive Order and the Republican House and Senate made it their objective to repeal the ACA. The ones who are hurting from the Republican vindictiveness are those in the unsubsidized individual market, those who bought off the exchanges, and those who live in states where Medicaid was not expanded.
In the end, Colorado Rep. Jack Kingston’s one sentence in Section 227 of the 2015 Appropriations Act (dated December 16, 2014) created a $2.5 billion shortfall in the Risk-Corridor program in 2015 as the HHS had collected $362 million in fees. Insurers who had misjudged the market sought nearly $2.9 billion in payments. Gerhart’ canary in a coal mine played out with many nonprofit insurance Co-ops failing due to a lack of reimbursements for losses, for-profit healthcare insurance companies lost money, healthcare insurance companies began to raise premiums to compensate, healthcare insurance companies recognizing an untenable environment created by Republicans took their losses and left the healthcare exchange market, and consumers were left without policies.
Ms. Seema Verma, you are using Ms. Sarah Huckabee Sander tactics to deny the truth.
New Choices in the ACA resulting from the CSR Cancelation
An excellent article is on the blogosphere analyzing the impact of Trump killing the CSR, “Rational Choice in the ACA Market Place.” What did Trump and Republican’s cancellation of the CSR cause in the market place? Simple answer, not what they expected. Andrew Sprung at Expostfactoid explains the result of Trump’s Executive Order.
Chart by David Anderson at Balloon Juice. So, what is going on here? Trump stops the CSR subsidies going to people 150% to 300% FPL and states responded by allowing or requiring insurers to concentrate the cost of CSR in premiums for silver plans only. What Balloon Juice is showing in its chart in the decrease in the numbers of Silver plans for Bronze plans and Gold plans that are now less costly and not required anymore due to cancellation of the CSR.
xpostfactoid’s Andrew Sprung:
“Since ACA premium subsidies are keyed to the price of the benchmark (second cheapest) silver plan in each rating area, subsidies rose to cover inflated silver premiums, generating often dramatic discounts in non-silver plans, i.e. gold and bronze (platinum availability and purchase is negligible). In many states, steep increases in silver plan premiums resulted in zero-premium bronze plans becoming available to many buyers (or nominal $1-3/month premiums), and gold plans that were either cheaper than silver or close in price.
Cheap gold plans were a particular boon to enrollees with incomes between 200% and 400% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL). These buyers are not eligible for strong CSR, which makes silver plans roughly equivalent to platinum plans for buyers up to the 200% FPL threshold. Normally, enrollees in the 200-400% FPL range would pay between 6% and 10% of their income (percentage rising with income) for a benchmark silver plan with an actuarial value of 70%, i.e. with an average deductible of around $3600). With CSR priced into silver plans in 2018, gold plans (80% AV, with an average deductible of around $1100) came within reach of many in this income range. Gold plan selection quadrupled in Maryland in 2018.”
Bronze plans could be free and Gold plans cheaper than Silver plans. Again, David Anderson at Balloon Juice presents an excellent chart detailing state by state a Silver to other Metal comparison. Click on the link to see Least Expensive Spreads.
ACA Signups, xposfactoid, and Balloon Juice will all tell you and I would also, the impact on people 150% to 400% FPL was not catastrophic. The impact of Trump’s cancellation of the CSR was felt on those making greater than 400% FPL and getting their insurance on and off the exchanges. Trumps and Republican’s cancellation will cause their premiums to rise the same as the cancellation of the mandate.
Former Secretary of HHS Tom Price
May 1, 2018, Med Page Today Former HHS Sec. Price Calls Individual Mandate Repeal a Mistake. Funny thing, Price never said it would be a problem while he was HHS Secretary. While Price criticized the GOP-led Congress for repealing the individual mandate, he also said they did little else to repeal or reform the ACA, suggesting the action might do more harm than good and was not enough.
run75441 @ angry bear blog