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Tag: ObamaCare

‘Cadillac Tax’ The Next Big Obamacare Battle

A mix of business groups and labor unions are pushing to tee up the next big Obamacare fight: killing its so-called Cadillac tax.

It is, they say, the type of Obamacare “fix” that Republicans and Democrats can agree on — notwithstanding the problem of filling an $87 billion budget hole that nixing the levy would produce.

Many expect it to be the next protracted battle over Obamacare — one that threatens to become a headache for Democrats, many of whom never liked the tax despite supporting the law more generally.

It’s one of the last big parts of the Affordable Care Act to go into effect — lawmakers delayed the levy until 2018 in part because it is so controversial — but companies are wrestling with it now as they plan employee benefits. Some are already negotiating with unions over benefits that could spill into 2018.

“This is going to have a life of its own as the clock ticks closer to 2018,” said Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), a critic of the tax.

Though the nickname suggests it will apply to a select few, experts say a majority of employers could eventually face the prospect of imposing what will be the first-ever tax on health care benefits.

The IRS began last month spelling out the nitty-gritty of how exactly the tax will work, though it left out many of the details employers say they need.

At issue is a 40 percent excise tax on the health benefits companies provide their workers above a certain threshold. In 2018, the tax will hit insurance and related perks valued at more than $10,200 for singles and $27,500 for families. So for family benefits worth $30,000, the tax would apply to the $2,500 that’s above the limit.

Taxing those benefits represents a major shift in generations-old tax policy.

Read the full article here.

Contact Steven G. Cosby, MHSA 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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CDC: Uninsured Drop by 11M Since Passage of Obama’s Law

The number of uninsured U.S. residents fell by more than 11 million since President Barack Obama signed the health care overhaul five years ago, according to a pair of reports Tuesday from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although that still would leave about 37 million people uninsured, it’s the lowest level measured in more than 15 years.

The most dramatic change took place in comparing 2013 with the first nine months of 2014. As the health care law’s major coverage expansion was taking effect, the number of uninsured people fell by 7.6 million over that time.

That’s “much bigger than can possibly be explained by the economy,” said Larry Levitt of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “The vast majority has to be due to the Affordable Care Act.”

Monday was the law’s fifth anniversary, and supporters and detractors again clashed over its impact.

Obama says the law in many ways is “working even better than anticipated.”

House Speaker John Boehner says it amounts to a “legacy of broken promises.”

The health care law offers subsidized private coverage to people who don’t have access to it on the job, as well as an expanded version of Medicaid geared to low-income adults, in states accepting it.

The White House says 16 million people have gained health insurance, a considerably higher estimate than Tuesday’s findings from CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.

The figures cited by the White House cover a longer period of time, through the beginning of this month. That includes the law’s second sign-up season. The estimate was produced by the principal policy adviser to Health and Human Services Sylvia M. Burwell.

The CDC reports compared the first nine months of 2014 with annual statistics going back as far as 1997, from the National Health Interview Survey. Among the highlights:

— The number of uninsured dropped from 48.6 million in 2010 to 37.2 million for the period from Jan.-Sept. last year. That amounted to 11.4 million fewer uninsured since the signing of the health care law.

— In 2014, about 27 million people said they had been without coverage for more than a year.

— Some 6.8 million people were covered through the health care law’s new insurance markets during July-Sept. of 2014.

— The most significant coverage gains last year came among adults ages 18-64. Nearly 40 million were uninsured in 2013. But that dropped to 32.6 million in the first nine months of 2014.

Read the full article here.

Contact Steven G. Cosby, MHSA 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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On 5th Anniversary of Health Care Law, No End to Debate

When President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Care Act five years ago, he visualized a time when the political hyperbole would be silenced and ordinary people would see that the health care law improved their lives.

The White House ceremony on March 23, 2010, was an applause-filled celebration. “When I sign this bill,” Obama said, “all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform.”

But the polemic around “Obamacare” hasn’t cooled much, and the permanence of the president’s achievement remains in question as the nation awaits the outcome of a Supreme Court case that could jeopardize insurance for nearly 8 million people.

Here’s a look at the health care law, then and now:

Then: 49.9 million people were uninsured in 2010, according to the Census Bureau.

Now: That’s down significantly, to somewhere between 30 million and 40 million people.

The administration recently estimated that 16.4 million adults have gained insurance since the law’s coverage provisions took effect.

Measuring differently, data from a large daily survey called the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index suggests a more modest impact: The uninsured rate dropped from 16.3 percent in early 2010 to 12.3 percent this year among adults 18-64, which translates to about 9.7 million fewer uninsured.

But the law’s precise impact may not be clear for a few years, partly because census surveys take time.

Read the full article here.

Contact Steven G. Cosby, MHSA 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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5 Ways Obamacare Has Helped Americans

It’s been five years since President Obama signed his landmark — and controversial — health care reform bill into law.

Much has changed since March 23, 2010. Nearly 11.7 million people have signed up on the Obamacare exchange for 2015 coverage. The growth in health care spending has slowed to record lows. Medicaid enrollment has soared to 70 million, up nearly 20% since mid-2013.
Certainly, there have been many setbacks and changes along the way. Deadlines have been extended. Policies have been amended. Heads have rolled.

The Supreme Court in 2012 struck down the requirement that all states expand Medicaid, leaving only 28 states and the District of Columbia to offer coverage to low-income adults. Healthcare.gov crashed on the first day of open enrollment in 2013 and it took months to fix. The small business exchanges are struggling with low enrollment.
And Obamacare remains costly for many, even with monthly subsidies. Deductibles can run into the thousands of dollars and doctors can be hard to find in some areas.
Still, many Americans are better off. Here are five ways Obamacare has made Americans healthier.

Fewer uninsured:
Millions of Americans now have coverage, many for the first time. The share of the nation’s uninsured has dropped to 12.3% for the first two months of the year, from 17.1% in late 2013, before coverage in the insurance exchanges began.

No one will be turned away:
The law banned insurers from turning away applicants because of pre-existing conditions. So those who were previously deemed uninsurable — either because of minor or life-threatening illnesses can now enroll in coverage to help them pay for their visits, tests and prescriptions.

Read the full article here.

Contact Steven G. Cosby, MHSA 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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Supreme Court Loss Hard to Recover From

The Supreme Court began hearing on Wednesday about the potential disruption in health insurance coverage for millions of people if Obamacare subsidies are struck down in the nearly three dozen states that didn’t set up their own exchanges. Behind the scenes in these states, insurers are scrambling to keep the subsidies in place, as I and my colleagues wrote over the weekend.

Without the subsidies, the situation would quickly become pretty chaotic for insurers, who’ve largely benefited from the law so far. Most of the uninsured would no longer be subject to Obamacare’s individual mandate requiring people to have health insurance because they wouldn’t then have access to “affordable” coverage, as the Affordable Care Act defines affordability. But all of the law’s other features that increase the cost of health insurance, such as guaranteed coverage regardless of preexisting conditions, would remain in place. The history of similar state-level health reform efforts that enacted these consumer protections without the mandate and financial assistance shows health insurance rates skyrocketed and healthier people dropped out of the insurance markets.

The timing of the Supreme Court decision could make a tough situation for insurers selling on the ACA exchanges even tougher. They’re going to be filing 2016 rates over the next few weeks and months, before the Supreme Court is expected to issue its decision in late June. If the subsidies are struck, it’s expected that healthier and low-income people would be the first to drop coverage — and quickly — after their monthly premiums increased on average by nearly 75 percent. That would then drastically alter the insurers’ assumptions about who would sign up for 2016 health plans — they’d have a costlier population to cover, but the 2016 rates would already be locked in.

Neither Republicans nor Democrats have offered much hope that Washington could come up with a quick and workable fix if the subsidies are suddenly stripped from millions of people. The Obama administration — which doesn’t want to give the Supreme Court any reason to think that an adverse ruling wouldn’t cause chaos — says there’s nothing it could do administratively.

Read the full article here.

Contact Steven G. Cosby, MHSA 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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