Senate’s Revised Obamacare Repeal Bill: What’s Different and is it Enough?
Do you know how the Senate's health care bill differs from Congress' bill? Check out this great article by Jared Bilski from HR Morning and find out the 6 key differences that separate the BCRA from the AHCA.
After failing to garner enough support for a vote before the July 4th recess for the Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017 — aka the ACA repeal bill — the Senate went back to the lab and made some changes. Now the revised bill is out, and HR pros are anxiously waiting to see what happens next.
Although the Senate did leave many of provisions in the original bill intact, it did make some notable changes geared toward appeasing right-leaning Senators who didn’t feel the bill went far enough to repeal and replace the current health reform law.
6 key differences
Those changes:
1. Pared-down benefit requirements
Where the ACA requires insurers to meet minimum requirements that include coverage for 10 essential health benefits, the revised bill would allow insurers to offer cheaper, slimmed-down coverage if the insurers offer at least one plan which meets the ACA standards.
)Note: Healthcare experts warn this change would severely threaten access to coverage for sick patients.)
2. Opioid-crisis funding
The revised bill would provide $45 billion to states to help combat the national opioid crisis. While this is well short of what experts say is needed to address the issue, it’s still more than the $2 billion the original Senate bill had earmarked for opioid-crisis funding.
3. Controversial tax cuts removed
Although the new Senate bill would keep some of the ACA taxes, it would kill two tax cuts that benefited the wealthy and do away with a tax break for high-earning health insurance execs. Both the cuts and the tax breaks were highly criticized aspects of the original Senate bill.
4. Catastrophic health plans
Under the Senate bill revision, people eligible for subsidies to receive tax credits would be able to purchase catastrophic health plans. Plus, anyone would be allowed to buy catastrophic coverage.
The ACA does allow young adult and some additional individuals to buy high-deductible, catastrophic plans featuring low premiums. But federal subsidies aren’t available for these plans — an attractive incentive for healthy individuals with fewer healthcare needs.
5. HSA-premium payments
The bill would allow individuals to use HSA funds to pay for healthcare insurance premiums.
6. Market stabilization
In an effort to help states reduce premiums in order to stabilize their insurance marketplaces, the revised Senate bill provides $182 billion in funding, an $112 billion increase from the $70 billion set aside in the first draft of the bill.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Bilski J. (2017 July 14). Senate's revised obamacare repeal bill: what's different and is it enough [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.hrmorning.com/senates-revised-obamacare-repeal-bill-whats-different-and-is-it-enough/
Coverage Losses by State for the Senate Health Care Repeal Bill
The Congressional Budget Office has just released its score on the Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA). Find out how each state will be impacted by the implementation of BCRA in this great article by Emily Gee from the Center for American Progress.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has released its score of the Senate’s health care repeal plan, showing that the bill would eliminate coverage for 15 million Americans next year and for 22 million by 2026. The CBO projects that the Senate bill would slash Medicaid funding by $772 billion over the next decade; increase individual market premiums by 20 percent next year; and make comprehensive coverage “extremely expensive” in some markets.
The score, released by Congress’ nonpartisan budget agency, comes amid an otherwise secretive process of drafting and dealmaking by Senate Republicans. Unlike the Senate’s consideration of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which involved dozens of public hearings and roundtables plus weeks of debate, Senate Republican leadership released the first public draft of its Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA) just days before it hopes to hold a vote.
The Center for American Progress has estimated how many Americans would lose coverage by state and congressional district based on the CBO’s projections. By 2026, on average, about 50,500 fewer people will have coverage in each congressional district. Table 1 provides estimates by state, and a spreadsheet of estimates by state and district can be downloaded at the end of this column.
The coverage losses under the BCRA would be concentrated in the Medicaid program, but the level of private coverage would also drop compared to the current law. The CBO projects that, by 2026, there will be 15 million fewer people with Medicaid coverage and 7 million fewer with individual market coverage. Our Medicaid numbers reflect that states that have expanded their programs under the ACA would see federal funding drop starting in 2021 and that the bill would discourage expansion among states that would otherwise have done so in the future.
Like the House’s repeal bill, the Senate’s version contains a provision allowing states to waive the requirement that plans cover essential health benefits (EHB). The CBO predicts that half of the population would live in waiver states under the Senate bill. The CBO did not specify which states it believes are most likely to secure waivers; therefore, we did not impose any assumptions about which individual states would receive waivers in our estimates. Even though the demographic composition of coverage losses would differ among waiver and nonwaiver states, for this analysis we assume that all states’ individual markets would shrink.
CBO expects that state waivers could put coverage for maternity care, mental health care, and high-cost prescription drugs “at risk.” CBO projects that “all insurance in the nongroup market would become very expensive for at least a short period of time for a small fraction of the population residing in areas in which states’ implementation of waivers with major changes caused market disruption.” Note that health insurance experts have noted that in addition to directly lowering standards for individual market coverage, waivers would also indirectly subject people in employer coverage to annual and lifetime limits on benefits.
The CBO’s score lists multiple reasons why out-of-pocket costs for individual market enrollees would rise under the bill. One reason is that bill’s changes to premium subsidies means that most people would end up buying coverage resembling bronze-level plans, which today typically have annual deductibles of $6,000. In addition, EHB waivers would force enrollees who could not afford supplemental coverage for non-covered benefits out of pocket while also allowing issuers to set limits on coverage.
In summary, the CBO projects that the effects of the Senate bill would be largely similar to those of the house bill: tens of millions of people would no longer have coverage, and those who remained insured see the quality of their coverage erode substantially. In just a few days, the Senate will vote to turn these dire projections into reality.
Methodology
Our estimates of coverage reductions follow the same methodology we used previously for the House’s health care repeal bill. We combine the CBO’s projected national net effects of the House-passed bill on coverage with state and local data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, the American Community Survey from the U.S. Census, and administrative data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Florida, North Carolina, and Virginia redrew their district boundaries prior to the 2016 elections. While the rest of our data uses census estimates corresponding to congressional districts for the 114th Congress, we instead used county-level data from the 2015 five-year American Community Survey to determine the geographic distribution of the population by insurance type in these three states. We matched county data to congressional districts for the 115th Congress using a geographic crosswalk file provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Our estimates of reductions in Medicaid by district required a number of assumptions. CBO projected that a total 15 million fewer people would have Medicaid coverage by 2026 under the Senate bill: 5 million fewer would be covered by additional Medicaid expansion in new states, and 10 million fewer would have Medicaid coverage in current expansion states and among pre-ACA eligibility groups in all states. The CBO projected that, under the ACA, additional Medicaid expansion would increase the proportion of the newly eligible population residing in expansion states from 50 percent to 80 percent by 2026. It projected that just 30 percent of the newly eligible population would be in expansion states. Extrapolating from the CBO’s numbers, we estimate the Senate bill results in a Medicaid coverage reduction of 3.3 million enrollees in current expansion states by 2026.
We then assume the remaining 6.7 million people who would lose Medicaid coverage are from the program’s pre-ACA eligibility categories: low-income adults, low-income children, the aged, and disabled individuals. We used enrollment tables published by the Medicaid and CHIP Payment Access Commission (MACPAC) to determine total state enrollment and each eligibility category’s share of the total, and we assumed that only some of the disabled were nonelderly. We then divided state totals among districts according to each’s Medicaid enrollment in the American Community Survey. Because each of the major nonexpansion categories is subject to per capita caps under the bill, we reduced enrollment in all by the same percentage.
Because we do not know which individual states would participate in Medicaid expansion in 2026 in either scenario, our estimates give nonexpansion states the average effect of forgone expansion and all expansion states the average effect of rolling back eligibility. We divided the 5 million enrollment reduction due to forgone expansion among nonexpansion states’ districts proportionally by the number of low-income uninsured. We made each expansion state’s share of that 3.3 million proportional to its Medicaid expansion enrollment in its most recent CMS report and then allocated state totals to districts proportional to the increase in nonelderly adult enrollment between 2013 and 2015. For Louisiana, which recently expanded Medicaid, we took our statewide total from state data and allocated to districts by the number of low-income uninsured adults.
Medicaid covers seniors who qualify as aged or disabled. Although the CBO did not specify the Medicaid coverage reduction that would occur among seniors under per capita caps, applying to elderly enrollees the same percentage reduction we calculated for nonexpansion Medicaid enrollees implies that 900,000 could lose Medicaid.
Lastly, our estimates of the reduction in exchange, the Basic Health Plan, and other nongroup coverage are proportional to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s estimates of exchange enrollment by congressional district. The House bill reduces enrollment in nongroup coverage, including the exchanges, by 7 million relative to the ACA. To apportion this coverage loss among congressional districts, we assumed that the coverage losses would be largest in areas with higher ACA exchange enrollment and in states where we estimated the average cost per enrollee would increase most under an earlier version of the AHCA.
The CBO projects that the net reduction in coverage for the two categories of employer-sponsored insurance and “other coverage” would be between zero and 500,000 people in 2026. We did not include these categories in our estimates.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Gee E. (2017 June 27). Coverage losses by state for the senate health care repeal bill [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/news/2017/06/27/435112/coverage-losses-state-senate-health-care-repeal-bill/
Analysis: Before ACA Benefits Rules, Care for Maternity, Mental Health, Substance Abuse Most Often Uncovered by Non-Group Health Plans
What would happen to the non-group insurance market under the American Health Care Act (AHCA)? Read this article from the Kaiser Family Foundation to learn more.
Three in four health plans in the non-group insurance market did not cover delivery and inpatient maternity care in 2013, before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) essential health benefits requirement took effect, finds a new Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.
Other major benefits most often left uncovered before the ACA include substance abuse disorder services (inpatient and outpatient services each not covered by 45% of 2013 non-group plans) and mental/behavioral health services (inpatient and outpatient services each uncovered by 38% of the plans).
Additionally, some plans that covered maternity, substance abuse or mental health care services included meaningful limits or restrictions, the analysis finds.
Since 2014, the ACA has required non-group plans to cover 10 categories of essential health benefits comparable to those offered in employer group plans. The new analysis offers a window into how insurers could respond if the essential health benefits requirement is rolled back, a change being considered by Congressional leaders and allowed through state waivers by the House-passed American Health Care Act as a potential way for lowering premiums.
Without the requirement, however, insurers in the non-group market would likely be reluctant to offer coverage for some expensive services that have an element of predictability and persistence, as people who needed these benefits would disproportionately select policies covering them. Unlike in the pre-ACA market, insurers would not be able to exclude from coverage altogether people with pre-existing conditions.
The new analysis finds that all 2013 non-group plans covered basic benefits, such as inpatient hospital services, inpatient physician and surgical services, and emergency room services. Some plans didn’t provide various levels of prescription drug coverage, however.
The analysis uses data insurers provided for the Health Plan Finder on HealthCare.gov for the last quarter of 2013. Certain provisions of the ACA, such as the prohibition of annual and lifetime dollar limits on benefits, had already begun to be phased in by that point, so the data does not reflect all of the types of limitations in non-group policies prior to the ACA.
See original article Here.
Source:
(14 June 2017) Analysis: Before ACA Benefits Rules, Care for Maternity, Mental Health, Substance Abuse, Most Often Uncovered by Non-Group Health Plans. [Web Blog Post]. Retrieved from address https://www.kff.org/health-reform/press-release/analysis-before-aca-benefits-rules-care-for-maternity-mental-health-substance-abuse-most-often-uncovered-by-non-group-health-plans/
An Update on Health Care and Tax Reform
Make sure you are staying up-to-date with all the recent changes happening in healthcare. Here is a great article by Joseph Minarik from the Committee for Economic Development to help you stay informed with everything going on with the new healthcare legislation.
The status of what may be the Administration’s two highest legislative priorities, health care reform and tax reform, remains uncertain.
The overwhelming consensus in Washington is that the Administration and the Congress have virtually no alternative but to either complete or abandon health care reform before taking up tax reform. That is because both an Administration health care reform (to “repeal and replace” Obamacare, more formally known as the Affordable Care Act, or ACA), and any Administration tax reform, can be enacted only under reconciliation procedures in the Senate (which prevent a filibuster that would require 60 votes to break). By budget process rules, there can be only one reconciliation process in progress at one time. The current process was designed expressly for health care reform. The health care reform process cannot continue if tax reform is begun.
A decision to abandon health care reform would be extremely painful to the many Republicans in Congress who made repealing Obamacare their signature campaign promise. This would certainly be an admission of failure in the current environment, with Republicans controlling the White House and both chambers of the Congress. But that delays and reduces the time available to complete any attempted tax reform. Of course, the relevant policy players can have tax reform conversations among themselves, but that is not the same as actually engaging in a public debate over actual legislative language.
So the current debate over health care legislation is time-sensitive. And passing the House health care bill, the American Health Care Act (AHCA), was extraordinarily difficult. The Senate cannot pass the AHCA, and their passing any similar bill would likely be even more difficult than was the process in the House.
To begin, Democrats will provide zero votes to “repeal” what they hold as the signature achievement of the Obama Administration. Republicans have 52 votes in the Senate, and thus, even under the reconciliation procedure, can afford to lose only two votes. (The Vice President would be called on to break a 50-50 tie.) Thus, the Senate Republicans’ margin for error is extremely small, and the ideological spread of their membership is probably wider than is that of their caucus on the House side.
And under these daunting arithmetic constraints, the Senate health bill must thread several very small substantive needles.
The bill will be under very tight fiscal constraints. The Republicans want the health bill to reduce the deficit, so that the money it saves can be used to pay for tax reform. This is expected even after the repeal of many of the taxes and fees and some of the spending cuts that Obamacare used to finance itself.
The programmatic expectations on the bill will be considerable. Opinion surveys showed “Obamacare” to be highly unpopular. But when not identified with the bill, many of Obamacare’s key features were found to be resoundingly popular – even among Republicans, and even in the very same surveys. One such feature was eliminating discrimination against persons with pre-existing conditions. At the same time, one of the highest House Republican priorities was reducing premiums. The House Republicans could find no alternative way to reduce premiums but to water down the protections for those with pre-existing conditions, in some instances through provisions that were less than totally transparent. The Senate Republicans are likely to be less accepting of such provisions.
The House Republican AHCA sought to attract younger, healthier households to purchase insurance (without the mandate that their Members abhor) by raising the relative premiums of older enrollees. That is unlikely to sit well in the Senate – or at least well enough with a margin of only two votes.
Next on what could be a very long list of concerns is the repeal of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. There are 20 Republican Senators who represent states that have expanded Obamacare. As much as some Republicans opposed the Medicaid expansion, the same Senators are unwilling to impose a sudden reduction in their states’ federal funding to repeal it. Many of those Republicans also do not want to remove health care coverage from the working families who were covered by the expansion.
In the broadest terms, Republican Senators will not want to take away a benefit that has been given to the citizens of their states – even though those Senators may have on a principled basis opposed granting that benefit in the first place. But achieving everything that they want to achieve in this bill, subject to a rigorous budget constraint, may prove impossible.
And then, assuming the Senate manages to pass a bill, it will then have to reconcile its very different bill with that of the House. It is always possible that many House and Senate Republicans will decide to sacrifice their preferences to that the Administration can have its first-year victory to set a positive tone (and avoid a highly negative one). But the first instinct of a Member of Congress is almost always self-preservation, and the fondest hope and expectation is that the next election will see the triumph of his or her ideological view and thus the ability to achieve all of the goals that cannot be obtained in the present because of the service of doctrinal purity.
Whether health care reform succeeds or not, the President and the Congress are sure to find that tax reform is every bit as complex as is health care reform. Again, they will begin with the tightest budget constraint, along with a lengthy list of priorities. They already have discussed tax cuts for large businesses and small businesses, public corporations and LLCs, and of course a massive tax cut for the middle class. How all of that happens without widening the already excessive and growing budget deficit is a true puzzle. At present, the House Ways & Means Committee chair continues to maintain that he will put forward a revenue-neutral bill by relying on the so-called “border-adjustment tax” which CED has discussed in a recent policy brief, and which has proven highly unpopular in the Senate. This makes the prospects even more murky.
If all of this fails, which it may or may not, the Administration and the Congress will find themselves at the end of the year with no particular legislative achievement. There is some possibility that they would respond to that conundrum by following the path of least resistance and proposing a large net tax cut, forcing the political opposition to vote against it and thus cross many taxpayers. But that, of course, would worsen the already troubling budget outlook.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Minarik J. (2017 May 17). An update on health care and tax reform [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.ced.org/blog/entry/an-update-on-health-care-and-tax-reform
Here's What The GOP Bill Would (And Wouldn't) Change About Women's Health Care
What will change about women's healthcare and what will stay the same? Danielle Kurtzleben explores the potential changes in the following article for NPR.
The Affordable Care Act changed women's health care in some big ways: It stopped insurance companies from charging women extra, forced insurers to cover maternity care and contraceptives and allowed many women to get those contraceptives (as well as a variety of preventive services, like Pap smears and mammograms) at zero cost.
Now Republicans have the opportunity to repeal that law, also known as Obamacare. But that doesn't mean all those things will go away. In fact, many will remain.
Confused? Here's a rundown of how this bill would change some women-specific areas of health care, what it wouldn't change, and what we don't know so far.
What would change:
Abortion coverage
There are restrictions on abortion under current law — the Hyde Amendment prohibits federal subsidies from being spent on abortions, except in the case of pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest or that threaten the life of the mother. So while health care plans can cover abortions, those being paid for with subsidies "must follow particular administrative requirements to ensure that no federal funds go toward abortion," as the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, explains.
But the GOP bill tightens this. It says that the tax credits at the center of the plan cannot be spent at all on any health care plan that covers abortion (aside from the Hyde Amendment's exceptions).
So while health care plans can cover abortion, very few people may be able to purchase those sorts of plans, as they wouldn't be able to use their tax credits on them. That could make it much more expensive and difficult to obtain an abortion under this law than under current law.
Planned Parenthood funding
This bill partially "defunds" Planned Parenthood, meaning it would cut back on the federal funding that can be used for services at the clinics. Fully 43 percent of Planned Parenthood's revenue in fiscal year 2015 — more than $550 million — came from government grants and reimbursements.
Right now, under Obamacare, federal funds can be spent at Planned Parenthood, but they can't be used for abortion — again, a result of the Hyde Amendment and again, with the three Hyde Amendment exceptions. But this bill goes further, saying that people couldn't use Medicaid at Planned Parenthood.
To be clear, it's not that there's a funding stream going directly from the government to Planned Parenthood that Congress can just turn off. Rather, the program reimburses Planned Parenthood for the care it provides to Medicaid recipients. So this bill would mean that Medicaid recipients who currently receive care at an organization that provides abortions would have to find a new provider (whom Medicaid would then reimburse).
Abortion is a small part of what Planned Parenthood does: The organizations says it accounted for 3.4 percent of all services provided in the year ending in September 2014. (Of course, some patients receive more than one service; Planned Parenthood had around 2.5 million patients in that year. Assuming one abortion per patient, that's roughly 13 percent of all patients receiving abortions.)
Together, providing contraception and the testing for and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases made up three-quarters of the services the organization provided in one year.
That means low-income women (that is, women on Medicaid) could be among the most heavily affected by this bill, as it may force them to find other providers for reproductive health services.
Of the other government money that goes to Planned Parenthood, most of it comes from Title X. That federal program, created under President Richard Nixon, provides family planning services to people beyond Medicaid, like low-income women who are not Medicaid-eligible. Earlier this year, Republicans started the process of stripping that funding.
What wouldn't change (yet):
Republicans have stressed that this bill was just one of three parts, so it's hard to say definitively what wouldn't change at all as a result of their plan. But thus far, here's what is holding steady:
Maternity and contraceptive coverage
Because this was a reconciliation bill, it could cover fiscal-related topics only. It couldn't get into many of the particulars of what people's coverage will look like, meaning some things won't change.
The essential health benefits set out in Obamacare — a list of 10 types of services that all plans must cover — do not change for other policies. Maternity care is included in those benefits, as is contraception, so plans will have to continue to cover those. The GOP bill also doesn't change the Obamacare policy that gave women access to free contraception, as Vox's Emily Crockett reported.
In addition, maternity and contraception are still both "mandatory benefits" under Medicaid. That doesn't change in the GOP bill. (Confusingly, the bill does sunset essential health benefits for Medicaid recipients. But because there is overlap and these particular benefits remain "mandatory," they aren't going away.)
However, all of this won't necessarily remain unchanged. In response to a question about defunding Planned Parenthood this week, Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said that he didn't want to "violate anybody's conscience." When a reporter asked how this relates to birth control, Price did not give a definite answer.
"We're working through all of those issues," he said. "As you know, many of those were through the rule-making process, and we're working through that. So that's not a part of this piece of legislation right here."
So this is something that could easily change in the second "phase" of the health care plan, when rules are changed.
"Preventative services [the category that includes contraception] hasn't been touched, but we expect those to be touched probably via regulation," said Laurie Sobel, associate director for women's health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The end of gender rating
Prior to Obamacare, women were often charged more for the same health plans as men. The rationale was that women tend to use more health care services than men.
However, Obamacare banned the practice, and that ban seems unlikely to change, as the GOP cites nondiscrimination as one of the bill's selling points:
"Our proposal specifically prohibits any gender discrimination. Women will have equal access to the same affordable, quality health care options as men do under our proposal."
See original article Here.
Source:
Kurtzleben, D. (10 March 2017). Here's What The GOP Bill Would (And Wouldn't) Change About Women's Health Care. [Web Blog Post] Retrieved from address https://www.npr.org/2017/03/10/519461271/heres-what-the-gop-bill-would-and-wouldnt-change-for-womens-healthcare
GOP’s Health Bill Could Undercut Some Coverage In Job-Based Insurance
Thanks to the new legislation passed by Congress health care is on the verge of changing as we know it. Check out this interesting article by Michelle Andrews from Kaiser Health News on how these changes to healthcare will affect Americans who get their healthcare through an employer.
This week, I answer questions about how the Republican proposal to overhaul the health law could affect job-based insurance and what the penalties for not having continuous coverage mean. Perhaps anticipating a spell of uninsurance, another reader wondered if people can rely on the emergency department for routine care.
Q: Will employer-based health care be affected by the new Republican plan?
The American Health Care Act that recently passed the House would fundamentally change the individual insurance market, and it could significantly alter coverage for people who get coverage through their employers too.
The bill would allow states to opt out of some of the requirements of the Affordable Care Act, including no longer requiring plans sold on the individual market to cover 10 “essential health benefits,” such as hospitalization, drugs and maternity care.
Small businesses (generally companies with 50 or fewer employees) in those states would also be affected by the change.
Plans offered by large employers have never been required to cover the essential health benefits, so the bill wouldn’t change their obligations. Many of them, however, provide comprehensive coverage that includes many of these benefits.
But here’s where it gets tricky. The ACA placed caps on how much consumers can be required to pay out-of-pocket in deductibles, copays and coinsurance every year, and they apply to most plans, including large employer plans. In 2017, the spending limit is $7,150 for an individual plan and $14,300 for family coverage. Yet there’s a catch: The spending limits apply only to services covered by the essential health benefits. Insurers could charge people any amount for services deemed nonessential by the states.
Similarly, the law prohibits insurers from imposing lifetime or annual dollar limits on services — but only if those services are related to the essential health benefits.
In addition, if any single state weakened its essential health benefits requirements, it could affect large employer plans in every state, analysts say. That’s because these employers, who often operate in multiple states, are allowed to pick which state’s definition of essential health benefits they want to use in determining what counts toward consumer spending caps and annual and lifetime coverage limits.
“If you eliminate [the federal essential health benefits] requirement you could see a lot of state variation, and there could be an incentive for companies that are looking to save money to pick a state” with skimpier requirements, said Sarah Lueck, senior policy analyst at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Q: I keep hearing that nobody in the United States is ever refused medical care — that whether they can afford it or not a hospital can’t refuse them treatment. If this is the case, why couldn’t an uninsured person simply go to the front desk at the hospital and ask for treatment, which by law can’t be denied, such as, “I’m here for my annual physical, or for a screening colonoscopy”?
If you are having chest pains or you just sliced your hand open while carving a chicken, you can go to nearly any hospital with an emergency department, and — under the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) — the staff is obligated to conduct a medical exam to see if you need emergency care. If so, they must try to stabilize your condition, whether or not you have insurance.
The key word here is “emergency.” If you’re due for a colonoscopy to screen for cancer, unless you have symptoms such as severe pain or rectal bleeding, emergency department personnel wouldn’t likely order the exam, said Dr. Jesse Pines, a professor of emergency medicine and health policy at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C.
“It’s not the standard of care to do screening tests in the emergency department,” Pines said, noting in that situation the appropriate next step would be to refer you to a local gastroenterologist who could perform the exam.
Even though the law requires hospitals to evaluate anyone who comes in the door, being uninsured doesn’t let people off the hook financially. You’ll still likely get bills from the hospital and physicians for any care you receive, Pines said.
Q: The Republican proposal says people who don’t maintain “continuous coverage” would have to pay extra for their insurance. What does that mean?
Under the bill passed by the House, people who have a break in their health insurance coverage of more than 63 days in a year would be hit with a 30 percent premium surcharge for a year after buying a new plan on the individual market.
In contrast, under the ACA’s “individual mandate,” people are required to have health insurance or pay a fine equal to the greater of 2.5 percent of their income or $695 per adult. They’re allowed a break of no more than two continuous months every year before the penalty kicks in for the months they were without coverage.
The continuous coverage requirement is the Republicans’ preferred strategy to encourage people to get health insurance. But some analysts have questioned how effective it would be. They point out that, whereas the ACA penalizes people for not having insurance on an ongoing basis, the AHCA penalty kicks in only when people try to buy coverage after a break. It could actually discourage healthy people from getting back into the market unless they’re sick.
In addition, the AHCA penalty, which is based on a plan’s premium, would likely have a greater impact on older people, whose premiums are relatively higher, and those with lower incomes, said Sara Collins, a vice president at the Commonwealth Fund, who authored an analysis of the impact of the penalties.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Andrews M. (2017 May 23). GOP's health bill could undercut some coverage in job-based insurance[Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://khn.org/news/gops-health-bill-could-undercut-some-coverage-in-job-based-insurance/
What Challenges Could State Insurance Markets Face Under the House’s American Health Care Act?
The new brief describes provisions of the AHCA over which states have discretion, and it discusses challenges that the bill presents states by significantly reducing both federal payments to Medicaid and funding for subsidies in the non-group insurance market, and by repealing the requirement that individuals have health insurance, a move that could drive up premiums.
The House health bill establishes two main ways for states to address these issues. States may use money from a new Patient and State Stability Fund to offset a portion of the federal spending reductions, and they may obtain a waiver to modify important insurance provisions.
According to the brief, issues and tradeoffs states could face under the AHCA include:
- Competing demands for reduced federal funding. Resources available through the Patient and State Stability Fund would be less than the spending reductions called for in the House bill.
- Funding limitations over time. Annual appropriations to the Patient and State Stability Fund don’t grow over time and end entirely after 2026.
- Waiving essential health benefits vs. limiting availability of coverage. States could lower premium rates in the individual market by using an essential health benefits waiver to reduce the benefits that policies are required to cover. However, insurers may then choose to charge higher premiums to cover important benefits that are no longer defined as essential health benefits, or they may choose not to cover those benefits.
- Waiving community rating vs. protecting access for people who are sick. A waiver to allow insurers to use health in rating applicants with a coverage gap is another way that states could seek to lower premiums. The bill provides states with options for covering individuals with pre-existing conditions and a gap; however, states would risk some individuals being priced out of the market.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Author (2017 June 5). What challenges could state insurance markets face under the house's american health care act [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.kff.org/health-reform/press-release/what-challenges-could-state-insurance-markets-face-under-the-houses-american-health-care-act/
Ten Ways That the House American Health Care Act Could Affect Women
The American Health Care Act (AHCA) will bring a lot of changes to many people and their healthcare. Find out how women's healthcare will be affected by the new legislation in this great article by Kaiser Family Foundation.
Women have much at stake as the nation debates the future of coverage in the United States. Because the Affordable Care Act (ACA) made fundamental changes to women’s health coverage and benefits, changes to the law and the regulations that stem from it would have a direct impact on millions of women with private insurance and Medicaid. On May 4, 2017, the House of Representatives passed the American Health Care Act (AHCA), to repeal and replace elements of the ACA (Appendix Table 1). It would eliminate individual and employer insurance mandates, effectively end the ACA Medicaid expansion, cap federal funds for the Medicaid program, make major changes to the federal tax subsidies available to assist individuals who purchase private insurance, and ban federal Medicaid funds from going to Planned Parenthood. It would also allow states to waive the ACA’s Essential Health Benefits requirements and permit health status as a factor in insurance rating for individuals who do not maintain continuous coverage with the goal of reducing insurance costs.1 The Senate will now take up legislation to repeal and replace the ACA and may consider several elements that the House has approved in the AHCA. This brief reviews the implications of the AHCA for women’s access to care and coverage.
ACA’s Impact on Coverage and Access for Women
Since the ACA’s passage, the uninsured rate has declined to record low levels. Between 2013 and 2015, the uninsured rate among women ages 19 to 64 fell from 17% to 11% (Figure 1). This drop was due in large part to the Medicaid expansion that was adopted by 31 states and DC, and the availability of federal tax credits to subsidize premium costs for many low and modest-income women and men. In addition to coverage improvements, fewer women face affordability barriers since the ACA was enacted. Women have consistently been more likely than men to report that they delay or go without needed care because of costs. The ACA addressed some of these financial barriers by providing subsidies for premiums and cost sharing, eliminating out of pocket costs for preventive services, lifting the lifetime limits on expenses insurance will cover, and requiring minimum levels of coverage for ten Essential Health Benefit categories. Since its passage, the share of women who report that they delayed or went without care due to costs has fallen (Figure 2). This drop has been particularly marked among low-income women, although costs continue to be a greater challenge for this group as well.
1. MEDICAID ELIGIBILITY: EXPANSION AND WORK REQUIREMENTS
Medicaid has been the foundation of coverage gains under the ACA. Eliminating federal funds for the ACA’s Medicaid expansion could leave many of the nation’s poorest women without a pathway to coverage.
Women comprise the majority of Medicaid beneficiaries—before the passage of the ACA and today. Prior to the ACA, compared to men, women were more likely to qualify for Medicaid because of their lower incomes and because they were more likely to meet one of the program’s eligibility categories: pregnancy, parent of a dependent child, over 65, or disability. The ACA eliminates the program’s “categorical” requirements, allowing states to extend Medicaid eligibility to all individuals based solely on income. In the 31 states and DC that have chosen to expand Medicaid, individuals with household incomes up to 138% of the Federal Poverty Level (FPL) qualify, and the federal government finances 95% of the costs.2
It is estimated that by 2015, 11 million adults had gained coverage as a result of the ACA’s Medicaid expansion. This opened the door for continuous coverage to pregnant women who often became ineligible for coverage 60 days after the birth of their baby and had no other pathway to coverage as new mothers. The Medicaid expansion has also helped women who do not have children gain access to coverage, since before the expansion they were ineligible for coverage in most states. If passed, the AHCA bill would withdraw the enhanced federal funds for the Medicaid expansion except for beneficiaries enrolled as of December 31, 2019 who do not have a break in eligibility for more than 1 month. This loss of federal financing would leave states without the funds needed to continue supporting this expansion, potentially forcing some states to roll back eligibility for parents to the very low levels that were in place before the ACA (Figure 3). For example, a single mother of two living in Louisiana or Indiana would not have qualified for Medicaid if her income exceeded $4,687. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that, under the House AHCA bill, some states that have already expanded their Medicaid programs would not continue that coverage (some states might also begin to reduce coverage prior to 2020), and that no new states will adopt the expansion.
The AHCA bill would also amend the federal Medicaid statute to allow states to require some beneficiaries, including parents of children 6 and older and adults without disabilities, to show proof of employment. States would have flexibility to design the details of the work requirement within federal guidelines and would receive additional federal support to help cover the administrative costs of this change.
2. CAPPING FEDERAL MEDICAID SPENDING
Medicaid provides health coverage to nearly one in five women in the U.S. Capping the program would limit the federal dollars that states would receive for a program that pays for half of births, three-quarters of all public family planning, and provides supplemental coverage for nearly 1 in 5 senior women on Medicare.
Since its inception in 1965, Medicaid has evolved to become a leading source of coverage for low-income women of all ages (Figure 4). The program provides health coverage to one in five women of reproductive age and one in four Latinas and African American women. Over the years, the program has also expanded to be the largest payor of maternity care and publicly-funded family planning in the U.S.
Medicaid is financed by a combination of federal and state dollars. For most beneficiaries, the federal government pays a percentage of costs, ranging between 50-75% depending on the state. Beginning in 2020, the AHCA would convert federal Medicaid funding from an open-ended matching system to an annual fixed amount of federal dollars. States could choose a “block grant” (for payment of services for children under 18 and poor parents of dependent children) or a “per capita cap” approach for five enrollment groups (the elderly, individuals with disabilities, children, newly eligible adults, and all other adults). While a capped approach would reduce federal spending, it would also shift more responsibility to states to pay more of their own dollars if they want to sustain the program at current levels.
While fixed federal financing would affect all individuals insured by Medicaid, one area that is particularly important for women is the program’s coverage of family planning services. Currently, the federal government requires coverage of family planning services and supplies and pays for 90% of the cost of these services, a higher match than for all other services.3 This higher federal payment rate provides states with an incentive to cover the full range of contraceptive methods. Under a per capita cap structure, states will still be required to cover family planning services, but there will no longer be an enhanced federal matching rate for family planning services provided to most beneficiaries. As a result, there may be less up-front financial incentive for states to cover the more expensive methods of contraception like IUDs, even though they are highly effective at preventing unintended pregnancies. Should states select a block grant option, family planning services would no longer be a mandatory benefit for non-disabled women on Medicaid.
If a state chooses a per capita cap structure, the AHCA would not change the financing structure for stand-alone family planning expansions that are currently in place in over half the states. These limited scope programs have allowed states to extend Medicaid coverage for family planning services to low-income women and men who do not have other family planning coverage. Since the AHCA’s per capita cap does not apply to these programs, states could continue to receive a 90% federal matching rate for them. These programs may become increasingly important to women because the CBO predicts that under this bill the number of uninsured would rise by 24 million over the next 10 years, and these Medicaid family planning programs are often an important source of reproductive care for uninsured women.
Both capped financing approaches would limit states’ ability to respond to rising costs, new and costly treatments, or public health emergencies such as the opioid epidemic or Zika. States may decide to make programmatic cuts such as cutting provider payments, particularly when facing fiscal pressures. For example, on average, Medicaid pays ob-gyns 76% of the Medicare rate4 and a smaller share of the commercial rate. If states were to make further cuts to provider payments or to plans, the pool of participating providers could shrink in response to reduced rates, which could make it harder for many women enrollees to find a participating ob-gyn or cause delays in scheduling appointments.
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3. MEDICAID AND PLANNED PARENTHOOD
Planned Parenthood provides reproductive health services for many low-income women across the nation. Cutting off federal Medicaid payments to the organization could limit the availability of the most effective contraceptives, as well as STI and cancer screenings for many women on Medicaid.
Many low–income women obtain reproductive care at safety-net clinics that receive public funds to pay for the care they provide. The network includes a range of clinics that provide a broad range of primary care services, such as community health centers (CHCs) and health departments as well as specialized clinics that focus on providing family planning services. The largest organization of specialized family planning clinics is Planned Parenthood, which receives federal support through reimbursement for care delivered to women and men on Medicaid, as well as grant funds from the federal Title X family planning program. Despite comprising only 6% of the safety-net clinics that provided subsidized family planning services in 2015, Planned Parenthood clinics served 32% of women (nearly 2 million women) seeking contraceptive care at these centers (Figure 5).
Should it become law, the AHCA would prohibit federal Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood for one year, even though federal law already prohibits federal dollars from being used to pay for abortions other than those to terminate pregnancies that are a result of rape, incest or a threat to the pregnant woman’s life. The AHCA bill would provide additional funds to CHCs, presumably to compensate for loss of a major provider of care to women, but there are no specifics in the bill that would require the health centers to use these funds to provide services to women. There is also concern that CHCs do not currently have the capacity to fill the gap in care that would arise if Planned Parenthood were no longer a participating Medicaid provider.5 Not all CHCs provide the same range of services as Planned Parenthood, and care at CHCs could be more costly than that provided by specialized family planning providers like Planned Parenthood.6 The CBO’s March 13, 2017 analysis of the AHCA stated that cutting off Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood for one year would result in loss of access to services in some low-income communities because it is the only public provider in some regions. The report also stated that the policy would result in thousands of additional unintended pregnancies that would be financed by Medicaid.7
4. ABORTION COVERAGE
Private and public coverage of abortion is currently limited in many states through the federal Hyde Amendment and state laws. The AHCA would go further than the ACA to restrict the availability of abortion coverage through private insurance policies.
Since 1976, the federal Hyde Amendment has limited the use of federal funds for abortion only to cases when the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest or is a threat to the woman’s life. Since its first passage over 40 years ago, the amendment has dramatically limited coverage of abortion under Medicaid, as well as other federal programs.8
In private insurance, the ACA explicitly bars abortion from being included as part of the Essential Health Benefit package defined by states and allows states to ban all plans in their Marketplaces from covering abortion. States can also ban abortion coverage in all state regulated private plans.9 As of March 2017, 25 states have laws limiting or banning coverage of abortion in ACA Marketplaces, and of these, 10 states ban abortion coverage in both the Marketplaces and in the private insurance market.
To ensure no federal dollars are used to subsidize abortion coverage, the AHCA bill would no longer make this a state option, rather it would ban abortion coverage in all Marketplace plans as well as prohibit the use of federal tax credits to purchase any plans that cover abortion that are available outside the Marketplace. The bill would limit employer coverage of abortion by disqualifying small employers from receiving tax credits if their plans cover abortion beyond Hyde limitations.
This provision would be in direct conflict with existing state policies in California and New York that require plans to cover abortion. Furthermore, no off market plans in these states would be able to enroll individuals who receive tax credits. Therefore, if enacted, the AHCA’s abortion coverage ban would likely face legal challenges.
5. TAX CREDITS, PREMIUM AND COST-SHARING SUBSIDIES
The AHCA would set the level of tax credit assistance using primarily age, and would repeal the ACA’s cost-sharing protections for low-income individuals. Because women have a lower income than men at all ages, this approach could place women at a disadvantage compared to men.
Women comprise more than half (54%) of ACA marketplace enrollees in the 34 states that use the federally facilitated marketplace, healthcare.gov. Approximately eight in ten (81%) Marketplace beneficiaries receive a premium tax credit, which offsets premium costs and makes them more affordable. In 2015, more than one-third (37%) of women who purchased insurance on their own were low-income ($23,540 for a single person) compared to 31% of men. 10 The current subsidy structure under the ACA provides higher levels of subsidies to those who are low-income, older, and who live in areas with more expensive coverage.
The AHCA, in contrast, would take a very different approach and reduce the amount that the federal government would contribute to subsidies with the goal of reducing federal spending. The AHCA would provide a flat tax credit based on age only up until an income of $75,000 for a single individual, and phases out at higher incomes. This would result in a large decrease in tax subsidies to older Marketplace enrollees compared to what is available to them today.
The AHCA would set aside additional federal funds to assist older enrollees as well as services for pregnant women and newborns and individuals with mental health and substance use disorders, but how those funds would be allocated is still to be determined. Nonetheless, under the AHCA’s tax credit methodology, people with lower incomes would receive significantly less than they do under current law. A higher share of women is poor or low-income than men, because women are more likely than men to head single parent households, work part-year or part-time, are paid less than men for similar work, and take breaks from the workforce to stay home and care for children and aging parents. As a result, this approach could disproportionately disadvantage women. In addition, the AHCA proposes to repeal the cost-sharing subsides available today under the ACA that provide additional protection from the high costs of deductibles, cost-sharing, and co-insurance to individuals with incomes below 250% of the federal poverty level.
6. INSURANCE REFORMS
The ACA banned many of the long-standing discriminatory practices in the individual insurance market that translated into higher cost burdens for women. While the AHCA maintains the gender-rating ban and the dependent coverage expansion, it could allow states to permit insurers to charge higher premiums to individuals with health problems if they have a lapse in coverage.
DEPENDENT COVERAGE
A popular element of the ACA is the provision that requires private health insurers that offer dependent coverage to children to allow young adults up to age 26 to remain on their parents’ insurance plans. This provision was the first in the ACA to take effect, and it increased the availability of insurance to an age group that historically had a high uninsured rate (Table 1). In 2015, 39% of women ages 19 to 25 reported that they were covered as a dependent.
GENDER RATING
Prior to the ACA, non-group insurers in many states charged women who purchase individual insurance more than men for the same coverage, a practice called gender rating.12 Yet, plans sold on the individual market often did not cover many important services for women, such as maternity care, mental health services, and prescription drugs.13 An estimated 6.5 million women purchased coverage on the individual insurance market in 2011, and many of these women paid higher rates than men. Prior to the ACA, most of the women in this market were of reproductive age, working, and had incomes below 250% FPL.14 The ACA bans gender rating and the AHCA would not change this.
PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS
One of the most popular provisions of the ACA has been the ban on pre-existing condition exclusions. In the years before the ACA was passed, insurance companies often denied or would not renew coverage to individuals with a “preexisting condition,” which included several conditions common among women such as pregnancy, breast cancer, or a prior C-section. The AHCA would not re-instate this practice, but individuals who do not maintain continuous coverage would be charged a penalty when they try to obtain health insurance after having a coverage gap. The penalty could be in the form of higher premium rates (30%) for one year. Alternatively, states could obtain a waiver to allow insurers to again engage in medical underwriting for one year, charging people with health problems higher rates. This would have the effect of raising premiums for people with pre-existing conditions such as pregnancy, prior C-section, or clinical depression.
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7. ESSENTIAL HEALTH BENEFITS
The ACA instituted new rules that require all plans in the individual market as well as Medicaid expansion programs to cover ten categories of benefits. Of particular importance to women has been the inclusion of maternity care, preventive services, and mental health.
The ACA requires all Marketplace plans and Medicaid expansion programs to cover ten categories of “essential health benefits” (EHB). Each state chooses a benchmark benefit plan, which sets the floor for services that plans in that state must cover within each EHB category.15
The AHCA would allow states to apply for a waiver to define their own EHBs beginning in 2020. Waivers would be automatically approved unless the HHS Secretary issues a denial within 60 days of submission. This means states could choose to exclude mental health or maternity care (see pregnancy-related care section below) from their EHB requirements. While the idea of choice sounds appealing to some, it is antithetical to how insurance operates ─ by spreading the costs and risks across the pool of insured individuals. Plans that include a broader range of benefits would be considerably more expensive than they are today. In addition to state-level waivers, the AHCA bill would rescind the EHB requirement for Medicaid expansion programs, meaning that beneficiaries in this group would not be entitled to coverage for all ten categories. Existing Medicaid rules require states to cover some of the categories, such as hospitalization and maternity and newborn care, but others such as substance abuse treatment and prescription drugs are optional and offered at state discretion.Prior to the ACA, there were few federal requirements on what private plans in the individual market had to cover. The ACA established a floor for benefits that individual market plans must cover with the goal of reducing variation and adverse selection by standardizing “meaningful coverage.” This is particularly important for women, as they are the exclusive users of maternity care and more frequent users of services in some other EHB categories, such as prescription drugs and mental health. Mental health services in particular were routinely excluded in individual plans prior to the ACA. Depression, anxiety, and eating disorders are all more common among women than men.
8. PREVENTIVE SERVICES
Currently, all private plans, Medicaid expansion programs, and Medicare must cover recommended preventive services without cost sharing. Important services for women include: breast and cervical cancer screening, osteoporosis screening, pregnancy related services, well woman visits, and contraception.
In addition to EHBs, the ACA included a related requirement that all private plans cover federally-recommended preventive services without charging cost-sharing. In contrast to EHBs, which apply to individually purchased plans and Medicaid expansion only, the preventive services requirement applies to all forms of private insurance, including employer-sponsored and individual market plans. Prior to the ACA, the only federal–level requirements that applied to group plans were for coverage of a minimum length of stay after a delivery, availability of reconstructive surgery following a mastectomy, and parity for mental health services. The preventive services coverage requirement also applies to the Medicaid expansion and Medicare programs. This means that most adults with some form of private or public insurance now have coverage without cost-sharing for all of the services recommended by the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), immunizations recommended by the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), and services for women recommended by the Health Resources and Services Administration.16
Among the slate of services covered, many are exclusively for women or address conditions that have a disproportionate impact on women (Figure 6). These services address some of the most common conditions for women, including breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, and obesity. For older women, the preventive services policy means that Medicare now covers the full cost of mammograms and bone density screenings, which were previously subject to 20% co-insurance before passage of the ACA.
The AHCA would maintain preventive services requirements for private plans, but would repeal the requirements for the Medicaid expansion population. Preventive services for adults are covered at state option for other Medicaid beneficiaries. States could opt to roll back coverage of preventive services for this group.
9. CONTRACEPTIVE COVERAGE
Today, the majority of women with private insurance have no cost contraceptive coverage. This preventive benefit has reduced women’s out-of-pocket spending on birth control and made the most effective, but often costly, contraceptive methods affordable for most insured women. This provision could be eliminated or modified through regulatory changes without the need for Congressional action.
Current law requires that most private plans include coverage of all FDA-approved contraceptive methods for women at no additional cost. Research has found that the requirement has had a large impact in a short amount of time. For example, in the first two years that the policy was in effect, the share of women with any out of pocket spending on oral contraceptives fell sharply to just 3.0% of women with employer-sponsored insurance (Figure 7).17 Similar effects have been documented for other contraceptives, including IUDs.18
The AHCA bill does not specifically address the contraceptive coverage requirement. However, President Trump and Secretary Price have expressed support for advancing “religious freedom,”19 and this provision has been at the heart of two cases that have reached the Supreme Court where employers have claimed that the requirement violates their religious beliefs. The contraceptive coverage requirement was implemented through a series of agency regulations that included contraception in the package of women’s preventive services, defined the religious exemption and accommodation available to houses of worship and faith-based nonprofits respectively, and clarified that plans must cover 18 contraceptive methods. Since these requirements are in regulations, the Trump Administration can issue new regulations and guidance to permit employers and insurers to cover fewer methods, or to exempt more employers with religious objections without the need for congressional action.20President Trump’s Executive Order Promoting Free Speech and Religious Liberty specifically calls on the Secretaries of Labor, Treasury, and Health and Human Services to amend regulations to protect conscience-based objections to the ACA’s preventive-care mandate.21 The goal of this is to exempt any employer with a religious or moral objection from the contraceptive coverage requirement, even though current regulations already relieve employers from paying for such coverage while assuring that women have coverage for contraceptives.
If the federal requirement is eliminated or scaled back, the scope of contraceptive coverage would again be shaped by employers, insurance plans, and state policy. More than half (28) of states have laws requiring plans in their states to cover contraceptives, but these are more limited than the ACA. Only five of the 28 states require coverage of the full range of contraceptives without cost sharing, but these state-level mandates do not apply to self-funded plans, which cover most insured workers.22
10. PREGNANCY-RELATED CARE
Today, pregnant and postpartum women have a greater range of protections and benefits than they did prior to the ACA. These range from mandatory maternity and newborn coverage, to no-cost prenatal screening, and breastfeeding supports. The AHCA would allow states to define the Essential Health Benefits requirements with a waiver, potentially excluding coverage for maternity care.
Before the ACA, pregnant women seeking insurance in the individual market were routinely turned away as having a pre-existing condition. Furthermore, many individual plans did not cover maternity services because it was not required in this market. Some individual plans offered separate maternity coverage as a rider which could be costly, ranging from roughly $15 to $1600 a month.23 Some plans also imposed a waiting period before the rider took effect. These discriminatory practices were limited to the individual market because coverage for maternity services has been required for decades both under Medicaid and in most employer-sponsored plans due to the Pregnancy Discrimination Act. The ACA changed this by including maternity and newborn care as part of the EHB package that must be included in individual private plans as well as under Medicaid expansion. While some states had required individual plans in their states to cover maternity services to varying degrees prior to the ACA, most did not.24 In addition, the ACA made other improvements through coverage of preventive services such as no-cost prenatal screenings and breastfeeding supports.
The AHCA would weaken some of the protections for pregnant women that are currently in place. By halting funds for Medicaid expansion, some new mothers would lose coverage once the 60-day postpartum period ends and become uninsured. Furthermore, it would permit states to waive the current federal EHB standards, potentially allowing states to remove or scale back maternity services as a required benefit. The bill would also allot funds to the Patient and State Stability Fund for pregnancy and newborn care, but there are no details on how it will be used.
Some have touted the benefits of excluding maternity coverage for those who will not need it such as men and older women as a way of giving policyholders more flexibility to choose their own coverage and purchase less expensive plans. However, this also means that the risk pool for plans that include maternity services would primarily be comprised of women who anticipate using maternity care, and would likely greatly increase costs for women who sought such coverage. Furthermore, given that nearly half of pregnancies are unintended some women would buy coverage that does not include maternity care thinking they won’t need it, only to find out their coverage falls short when they are pregnant.
Conclusion
Today, women’s health coverage levels are at an all-time high. In addition to the coverage gains in the Marketplaces and Medicaid, many of the long-standing discriminatory practices in the individual insurance market that translated into higher cost burdens for women have been banned. Minimum standards for benefits that individual plans must cover through the EHB and the preventive services requirements for all private plans have assured that most insured women have coverage for a broad range of recommended services that they need such as maternity care, mental health services, and preventive services such as mammograms, pap smears, and contraceptives. Recent polling shows that the American public values these protections, including those for poorer women (Figure 8). In addition, while the AHCA would prohibit federal Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood for one year, 75% of Americans say they favor continued federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
If enacted, the AHCA would alter subsidies for private insurance, eliminate the Medicaid expansion, ban Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood, place a cap on Medicaid spending, and turn EHB standards over to the states. This legislation would have considerable impact on women, particularly low-income women who rely on subsidies and those who are on Medicaid. The Senate will now take up their own debate about the future of the ACA. In addition to legislation, many of the ACA’s other provisions could be amended through federal-level administrative actions. Given the gains that women have made in access to meaningful and affordable coverage, they have much at stake in the current debate over the future of our nation’s private and public insurance programs.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Ranji U., Salganicoff A., Sobel L., Rosenzweig C. (2017 May 8). Ten ways that the house american health care act could affect women [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.kff.org/womens-health-policy/issue-brief/ten-ways-that-the-house-american-health-care-act-could-affect-women/
New CBO AHCA Score Confirms What We Already Knew
The CBO has just released their final score for the revised version of the American Health Care Act (AHCA). Find how the CBO scored this revised piece of legislation and what it means for you in this article by Mark J. Mazur from Tax Policy Center
Meet the new estimate of the American Health Care Act (AHCA). It looks a lot like the old one.
On May 24, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its estimate of the revised AHCA, which the House of Representatives passed on May 7. The revised AHCA allows states to opt out of ACA requirements establishing essential health benefits and permits states establishing high-risk pools to allow insurers to set premiums based on health status. The modified bill sets aside $8 billion to help subsidize these pools.
Like its predecessor, the revised AHCA has four distinct major components.
- One would cut taxes paid by high-income individuals (lower taxes on capital gains, divided, and interest income for households with annual income over $250,000) and by companies in specific industries: health insurance, medical devices, prescription drugs, and indoor tanning salons.
- The second is a grab bag of tax reductions, such as loosened rules for flexible spending accounts and health savings accounts, repeal of the tax on individuals who can afford but don’t buy adequate health coverage, and a further delay of the excise tax on high-cost health plans (the so-called “Cadillac Tax”).
- The third restructures the tax credits that subsidize health care coverage, moving from existing income-related tax credits for purchasing health insurance on the ACA Marketplaces to age-related tax credits to purchase health insurance.
- And the fourth cuts Medicaid spending reducing coverage and essentially paying for the tax cuts.
The chart below shows the tax changes (the first two major components mentioned) go almost entirely to the highest earning households, while providing little or no benefit to the bottom 80 percent of the income distribution. In fact, TPC estimates that a $37,000 average annual tax cut will go to the 1 percent of the population with the highest earnings (annual income of over $772,000). The top 0.1 percent of the income distribution would receive an annual tax cut of over $200,000 (annual income over $3.9 million). (Note that this chart shows the estimates for 2022, but incorporates the tax law changes for 2023 as the AHCA phases in some of the tax changes).
The bottom line: CBO estimates confirm the AHCA is largely a tax bill paired up with Medicaid cuts to offset the costs. And, as in the earlier version of the bill, almost all the benefits go to the highest income households in the country.
See the original article Here.
Source:
Mazur M. (2017 May 24). New CBO AHCA score confirms what we already knew [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/new-cbo-ahca-score-confirms-what-we-already-knew
Planned Parenthood Funding Could Thwart GOP Efforts On Health Bill
With the many changes coming to healthcare thanks to the passing of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) in Congress. See how funding for planned parenthood could become a problem for the AHCA trying to pass in the Senate in this great article by Julie Rovner at Kaiser Health News.
If there’s anything congressional Republicans want to do more than “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act it’s defund Planned Parenthood, which provides health care to women around the country. But Senate rules could prevent lawmakers from accomplishing both of those goals in the same bill, as they intend to do.
The American Health Care Act, passed by the House earlier this month to overhaul the federal health law, would bar funding under the Medicaid program for one year to any “prohibited entity” that “is primarily engaged in family planning services, reproductive health, and related medical care; and … provides for abortions” other than those for rape, incest or to protect the life of the woman.
Although Planned Parenthood is not mentioned, it is clearly the target of the provision. On the other hand, the Senate parliamentarian could rule that the language does not qualify to be included in this specific bill.
The provision has mostly flown under the radar in recent debates about the bill. But defunding Planned Parenthood is a top priority for powerful anti-abortion groups counting on its inclusion as a condition to support the bill. It would pose enormous political problems for the measure if it does not pass the Senate.
“Congress has the votes to get it done. There are no excuses for inaction,” warned Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the Susan B. Anthony List, in a statement aimed at lawmakers in March.
Whether Congress truly has enough votes to pass the bill is unclear. Congress is using the “budget reconciliation” process for its health law overhaul because reconciliation bills cannot be filibustered in the Senate and require only a simple majority vote — rather than the typical 60 — to pass. Republicans control only 52 seats in the Senate.
Under Senate rules for reconciliation, any provision in the measure must primarily be aimed at affecting the federal budget, either adding to or subtracting from federal spending. Items for which spending is “merely incidental” to a broader purpose can be ordered dropped from the bill by the parliamentarian under the “Byrd Rule,” named for its author, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), a longtime Senate leader who died in 2010.
In the past, policies related to abortion have been singled out as violating that rule. For example, Robert Dove, who served as parliamentarian twice under Republican control of the Senate, said in a 2010 interview that he ruled an abortion ban out of order in a 1995 reconciliation bill because “it was my view that the provision was not there in order to save money. It was there to implement social policy.”
Republicans have defended the inclusion of the Planned Parenthood provision in the reconciliation bill. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), when defending the lack of anti-Planned Parenthood language in the spending bill that passed last week to keep the government running, said the measure “needs to be in the reconciliation bill — as it is — because that’s how you get it into law.”
Planned Parenthood gets an estimated 75 percent of its government support from the Medicaid program, mostly for birth control, sexually transmitted disease screening and treatment, and well-woman care. The language, if it becomes law, would have a major effect on the organization and its affiliates. The federal “Hyde Amendment” has for 40 years barred the use of federal funds for most abortions, but the fact that many Planned Parenthood affiliates offer separately funded abortion services has made the organization a longtime target of abortion opponents.
Defenders of the provision point out it is identical to language included in a 2015 budget bill that was vetoed by President Barack Obama.
“That same language already has a track record of success, passing Congress in 2015,” also under the Senate’s reconciliation rules, wrote Tony Perkins, president of the anti-abortion Family Research Council, in a blog post for supporters.
But passing parliamentary muster once “does not guarantee” the same language will be approved again, said Richard Kogan, a budget process expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a Washington-based think tank. “A true precedent exists only when a point of order has been raised and the chair has made a ruling,” he said.
And while the language has not changed, circumstances around it have. For one thing, since 2015 the Congressional Budget Office has interpreted the language less broadly than it is written. “CBO expects that, according to those criteria, only Planned Parenthood Federation of America and its affiliates and clinics would be affected,” CBO said in its official estimate of the original House bill.
That would not, on its face, rule the language impermissible as part of the reconciliation bill. But supporters of Planned Parenthood said if lawmakers thought there was no potential problem, they would have simply named the organization in the bill, as in separate legislation introduced this year.
The CBO also lowered its estimate of how much the provision would save — from $235 million for a one-year defunding in 2015 to $156 million in 2017. The bill includes only a one-year ban on funding because CBO has estimated a permanent funding ban would actually cost money — as women who don’t get birth control get pregnant, have babies and possibly end up qualifying for Medicaid.
In the end it will be up to Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough to make the call. Typically, the parliamentarian hears both sides argue their case before making a decision on whether a provision is allowable or not.
Even if MacDonough approves the provision, however, it is still not smooth sailing in the Senate. At least three GOP senators — Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Dean Heller of Nevada — have said they are uncomfortable with defunding Planned Parenthood.
“That is an important issue to me, because I don’t think that low-income women should be denied their choice of health care providers for family planning, cancer screenings, for well-woman care,” Collins said Sunday on ABC.
Those three votes would, if the senators followed through, be enough to force the provision out in the Senate.
And if the bill went back to the House with no Planned Parenthood defunding, “it would be problematic, I believe, based on my conversations with my colleagues,” said Rep. Mark Meadows, (R-N.C.), a leader of the House Freedom Caucus who helped negotiate the final language in the House bill.
Anti-abortion groups like Susan B. Anthony List are counting on the language staying in. “We urge the Senate to keep these non-negotiable provisions and quickly advance this bill to the President’s desk,” said a statement from Dannenfelser, the group’s president.
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Source:
Rovner J. (2017 May 12). Planned parenthood funding could thwart GOP efforts on health bill [Web blog post]. Retrieved from address https://khn.org/news/planned-parenthood-funding-could-thwart-gop-efforts-on-health-bill/