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Category: Steven G. Cosby, MHSA

Greater Healthcare Price Transparency Could Save $100 Billion Over 10 Years

Providing patients, physicians, employers and policymakers more information on healthcare prices could reduce U.S. healthcare spending by an estimated $100 billion over the next decade, according to a new analysis from the Gary and Mary West Health Policy Center.
Most healthcare transparency initiatives focus solely on providing patients with information on out-of-pocket costs. “While healthcare transparency is typically viewed through the lens of patient-facing transparency tools to drive comparison shopping, our analysis suggests even greater impact could be achieved by expanding the audience for such information,” said Dr. Joseph Smith, chairman of the West Health Policy Center Board of Directors. “We’ve found that providing price information to three key stakeholders—physicians, employers and policymakers—may have a far greater impact. And we have identified a range of new policy proposals, including three that, if implemented, could save $100 billion over 10 years.”

Read full article here.

Contact Steven Cosby with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.
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In Virginia, Medicaid Expansion Fight Escalates

Two state workers gained access to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s deserted office suite one recent Sunday, on a mission from Republican House Speaker William J. Howell. Watergate it was not. The workers were escorted by the chief of Capitol Police. Their assignment: to drop off a copy of the state budget bill. Yet the expedition was not entirely devoid of political intrigue. The sooner the budget arrived at the governor’s office, the sooner McAuliffe (D) would have to act on it; the governor gets seven days from the moment it lands, to sign, veto or amend it.

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Contact Steven Cosby with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.
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The Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Small Business

Whereas large corporations typically self-insure – paying their employees’ medical bills and hiring insurers to administer health benefits – small businesses purchase group health coverage from insurers and face cost-increasing regulations as they go through the annual ritual of renewing their coverage. Over the next few years, as regulations and mandates are finally implemented, Obamacare will affect how businesses operate – including hiring, employee compensation, growth and so forth.

The Mandate on Employers
Though media attention has focused on the federal and state health exchanges, much of the burden of complying with the Affordable Care Act will fall on business. Nearly two-thirds of Americans with health coverage have employer-sponsored health insurance – approximately 171 million people.
Health benefits are a significant expense for U.S. employers and a substantial portion of workers’ total compensation. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the required coverage for an individual will cost $5,800 a year or more in 2016 – the equivalent of an additional $3 an hour “minimum health wage.” Family coverage could cost more than twice that amount.
For instance: The cost of employee health benefits averages $2.70 per hour, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, representing 8.5 percent of private industry workers’ total compensation.
The Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual survey of employer health benefits found the average cost of an employee family plan was $16,351 in 2013.

Read full article here.

Contact Steven Cosby with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.
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BREAKING NEWS: Supreme Court Rejects Contraceptives Mandate for Some Corporations

The Supreme Court ruled in a 5-to-4 decision on Monday that requiring family-owned corporations to pay for insurance coverage for contraception under the Affordable Care Act violated a federal law protecting religious freedom.

The decision, which applied to two companies owned by Christian families, opened the door to challenges from other corporations to many laws that may be said to violate their religious liberty.

The coverage requirement was challenged by two corporations whose owners say they try to run their businesses on religious principles: Hobby Lobby, a chain of crafts stores, and Conestoga Wood Specialties, which makes wood cabinets.

The health care law and related regulations require many employers to provide female workers with comprehensive insurance coverage for a variety of methods of contraception. The companies objected to some of the methods, saying they are tantamount to abortion because they can prevent embryos from implanting in the womb. Providing insurance coverage for those forms of contraception would, the companies said, make them complicit in the practice.

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Contact Steven Cosby with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.
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CBO: It’s Not Possible to Analyze Obamacare Costs

Americans may never get an accurate projection of Obamacare’s impact on the deficit, reports the Washington Examiner.

Before it become law, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that Obamacare would cost $938 billion and reduce the deficit by $143 billion over the first decade, from 2010 through 2019. At that time, the figures were already questionable:

· Because the major spending provisions of the Affordable Care Act (the Medicaid expansion and the exchanges subsidies) did not become effective until 2014, the CBO’s estimate really included just six years of real spending within that 10-year period.
· The estimate of $143 billion in deficit reduction was a function of the law’s tax increases and Medicare spending cuts.
Since that original estimate, the CBO’s financial projections have continued to change:

· In July 2012, the CBO reduced its estimate of the law’s impact on the budget deficit to $109 billion.
· In April 2014, the CBO said that the cost of the ACA from 2015 to 2024 would be more than $1.8 trillion — twice as much as its first ten-year projection.

In that same April report, the CBO include a significant footnote: “CBO and (the Joint Committee on Taxation) can no longer determine exactly how the provisions of the (Affordable Care Act) that are not related to the expansion of health insurance coverage have affected their projections of direct spending and revenues… Isolating the incremental effects of those provisions on previously existing programs and revenues four years after enactment of the ACA is not possible.”

The Washington Examiner notes that Obamacare’s deficit reduction claims were already questionable, as it is not clear that the law’s proposed Medicare cuts will remain in place. Additionally, unions, insurers, drug makers and medical device companies each would like relief from the law’s new tax provisions.

Read full article here.

Contact Steven Cosby with questions or to request more information and to schedule a healthcare plan evaluation, savings analysis or group plan solution for your company.

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