MHA Press Room

Polls reveal Americans’ opinions on ACA, Medicare reform

While pollsters are busy this week predicting the outcome of our next presidential election, a pair of surveys looked at how health care might fare – and a few surprises emerged. Regardless of who wins the White House, one survey found, Americans believe Obamacare will survive, albeit not entirely intact. But according to another poll, it’s the younger generation of voters that don’t necessarily favor that result.

Read more from Healthcare Finance News here.

Report offers framework for measuring medical expense risk

A new report from the National Research Council offers a framework for a measure that would estimate the proportion of families and children who are at risk of incurring a high percentage of out-of-pocket medical care expenses, including health insurance premiums, in relation to their resources. The Department of Health and Human Services requested the report in fall 2010 to help in implementing “a new measure of medical care risk that will be valuable for monitoring the implementation of health care reform.”

CBO updates tax penalty estimates under ACA

The Congressional Budget Office and Joint Committee on Taxation now estimate that about 6 million uninsured people will pay a tax penalty under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act because they are uninsured in 2016, according to a report released Sept. 19 by the CBO. That's about 2 million more people than they estimated in April 2010.

According to the report, about 85% of the increase stems from changes in CBO and JCT's baseline projections, including a higher unemployment rate and lower wages and salaries, while the rest results from the recent Supreme Court decision.

"As a result of that decision, CBO and JCT now anticipate that some states will not expand their Medicaid programs at all or will not expand coverage to the full extent authorized by the ACA," the report states. "Such state decisions are projected to increase the number of uninsured, a small percentage of whom will be subject to the penalty tax."

The ACA requires most legal residents to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty tax. According to the report, CBO and JCT now estimate that penalty collections will total about $7 billion in 2016 and average about $8 billion annually over the 2017-2022 period, about $3 billion more per year than their earlier estimate.

Forum on Medicaid expansion, previously closed to press, now open

The Association of Health Care Journalists worked with the Obama administration to resolve questions about whether reporters can dial in to an open door forum today about the Medicaid expansion. Originally, the administration’s notice said that the event was open to stakeholders and other interested parties, but was closed to the press. That runs counter to the administration’s policy about such events.

HHS and CMS have now confirmed to us that reporters can indeed call in to listen to the forum (details are availabe from AHCJ here).

Mississippi county-by-county breakdown of the effects of health law's Medicare cuts

This white paper, written by HSI Network researcher Robert Book and the American Action Forum's Michael Ramlet, provides a county-by-county breakdown for all states of the effects of the health law's $716 billion in Medicare cuts.

About one-third of the cuts would come from payments to private Medicare Advantage plans. The rest would come from lower payments to health care providers, particularly hospitals.

HHS: ACA rate review, MLR rules save consumers $2.1 billion

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s rate review and Medical Loss Ratio rules have saved consumers an estimated $2.1 billion on health insurance premiums to date, according to a report released Sept. 11 by the Department of Health and Human Services. The ACA last year began requiring health plans to provide rebates to enrollees if their MLR, the percentage of premiums spent on clinical services and health care quality improvement activities, is less than 85% for large group health plan markets or 80% for small group and individual markets.

The law also established a process for reviewing rate increases of 10% or more in the individual and small group markets. Insurers can either reduce their rate hikes or post a justification on their website within 10 days of the rate review determination.

HHS announces average MLR rebates by state

About 12.8 million Americans will receive premium rebates averaging $151 each by Aug. 1 from health insurers who did not meet medical loss ratio requirements under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services announced June 21. Under the ACA requirement, most individual and small group health plans must spend at least 80% and most large group plans at least 85% of premiums on direct medical care or quality improvement efforts or rebate the difference to policyholders annually by Aug. 1.

For a list of average 2012 rebates by state and plan type, visit www.healthcare.gov. Insurers also must notify policyholders whether they met the standard, and if not, the amount of their rebate.

CDC reports on use of certain preventive health services before ACA

To track national efforts to improve access to preventive services, a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides baseline data on the use of nine preventive services for adults prior to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. The services are: aspirin and other antiplatelet therapy; hypertension management; lipid management; diabetes management; tobacco cessation; breast cancer screening; colorectal cancer screening; HIV screening; and flu vaccination.

Among other findings, CDC said 47% of patients with heart disease were prescribed the recommended daily use of aspirin; 44% of adults with high blood pressure and 32% of adults with high cholesterol had it under control; and 8% of adult tobacco users were proscribed smoking cessation medication.

Report looks at state options to reduce health coverage disruptions under ACA

Each year nearly one-third of Americans who qualify for Medicaid or health insurance subsidies under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will change their source of health coverage due to changes in their income and employment, according to a new report from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. That’s an estimated 29.4 million people annually.

“To lessen the harm that results from [this] churning, states can provide consumers with intensive assistance to help them navigate through involuntary coverage transitions; implement policies that maintain continuity of care when consumers are forced to change health plans; and prevent coverage gaps by trimming the paperwork consumers must complete to retain coverage and by increasing the affordability and value of available health coverage at each end of eligibility transitions,” the authors say.

CMS reports on use of ACA Medicare preventive benefit

About 14.3 million people in original Medicare received an annual wellness visit or other preventive service at no cost to them in the first five months of 2012, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced June 11. That includes 1.1 million people who received an annual wellness visit. Medicare last year began offering annual wellness visits, cancer screenings and other recommended preventive services with no co-payment or deductible, as required by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In 2011, 32.5 million enrollees took advantage of the benefit.