“A conservative federal judge in Texas on Friday ruled the Affordable Care Act “invalid” on the eve of the sign-up deadline for next year. But with appeals certain, even the Trump White House said the law will remain in place for now.
Posts Tagged ‘subsidies’
Federal judge rules Obama’s health care overhaul unconstitutional
Thursday, January 3rd, 2019Why Do Short-Term Health Insurance Plans Have Lower Premiums Than Plans That Comply with the ACA?
Friday, November 2nd, 2018“The Trump administration earlier this year issued a regulation that expands the availability of “short-term” health insurance plans that do not have to comply with any of the rules in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for plans sold in the individual market. Specifically, the regulation allows short-term plans to be offered for up to 364 days and renewed at the discretion of the insurer for up to three years. Short-term plans are also expected to be more attractive now that ACA’s individual mandate penalty has been repealed, since people previously enrolling in these plans were liable for the penalty.
Insured Through Your Job? Medicaid? The ACA? Here’s What Could Change For You
Friday, March 24th, 2017“It’s even clearer now how much the GOP plan to replace the Affordable Care Act will change health insurance for just about everyone.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office Monday released its estimates of the cost and impact of the House Republican plan known as the American Health Care Act. Chief among its findings is that the number of people without health insurance would increase by 14 million in 2018. By 2026, that figure would hit 24 million.
Only one insurer will offer PPO plan on state Obamacare exchange
Monday, October 31st, 2016“Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois will be the only insurer offering PPO health insurance plans on the state’s Obamacare exchange next year, according to information released Friday by the state Department of Insurance.
That’s down from five insurers that offered individual PPO plans on the exchange this year. Many consumers prefer PPO health plans because, unlike HMO plans, they allow patients to see specialist doctors without a referral and see physicians who are out-of-network, albeit at higher costs.
The reduced choices were not unexpected, following the exit of several insurers from Illinois’ exchange. Aetna, its Coventry brand, UnitedHealthcare, UnitedHealthcare subsidiary Harken Health and Land of Lincoln all announced this year they wouldn’t offer individual plans on the exchange next year. Many insurers have cited financial struggles as their reason for abandoning the exchange.
The information was released Friday along with final rates for insurance plans on the exchange, which on average, are largely the same as rates submitted to the federal government in August. Rates will increase by an average of 44 percent for the lowest-priced bronze plans, 45 percent for the lowest-priced silver plans and 55 percent for the lowest-priced gold plans.
The information released Friday, however, also shows for the first time which insurers will offer what types of plans in each county on the exchange next year:
• In Cook County, insurer Celtic will offer an HMO plan, Cigna will offer an HMO and Blue Cross and Blue Shield will offer an HMO and a PPO.
• In Lake and McHenry counties, Blue Cross and Blue Shield will be the only on-exchange insurer offering HMO and PPO plans.
• In Kane and DuPage counties, Cigna will offer an HMO, Celtic will offer an HMO to part of the area and Blue Cross and Blue Shield will offer an HMO and PPO.
The federal government will release specific premiums, deductibles and information about networks by Nov. 1, when consumers can begin shopping for insurance on the exchange.
This year, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois stopped offering its broadest PPO plan for individuals on the exchange, instead offering a smaller PPO network that didn’t include popular academic medical centers at Northwestern University and the University of Chicago or hospital chain NorthShore University HealthSystem.
“We will continue to work with state and federal regulators and legislators to ensure a stable and sustainable insurance marketplace and to improve the quality and cost of care for all of our members,” Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois said in a statement Friday.
Illinois is not unique in how few insurers will offer on-exchange PPOs next year, said Katherine Hempstead, a senior adviser at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Options will be more plentiful for Illinois residents who buy individual insurance off the exchange, but people who buy off-exchange plans aren’t eligible for federal subsidies that offset insurance costs. About 75 percent of Illinois residents who buy insurance on the exchange now get those subsidies, which will allow those consumers to pay less than $75 a month next year, even with the rate increase, Jonathan Gold, a spokesman for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement.
Five insurers will offer off-exchange PPO plans next year in different parts of the state. In all, 14 insurers will offer plans off the exchange. Consumers typically can buy off-exchange insurance through brokers or through insurance companies directly.
Oftentimes, insurers are more inclined to offer plans off the exchange because they may believe they’ll get healthier customers, said Larry Levitt, a senior vice president for special initiatives at the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
Most consumers, he said, are most concerned about making sure insurance plans’ networks include their doctors and that their monthly premiums aren’t too high. “It means consumers have to shop around carefully, as options are changing,” he said.
Land of Lincoln just 1 in long line of ACA health co-op failures
Wednesday, July 20th, 2016The Chicago Sun-Times reports:
“The state’s shutdown of its three-year-old Land of Lincoln Health was no surprise, observers say, coming amidst a nationwide trail of failures of nonprofit alternative insurers set up under the Affordable Care Act.
Those insurers faced many obstacles, but most important were two financial hits: the federal government’s reneging on hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies promised under ACA, while at the same time demanding the struggling startups pony up hundreds of millions in other contributions required under that law.
IRS may never recoup $350 million in Obamacare tax credit overpayments
Wednesday, September 16th, 2015“A quirk in the law means the IRS will never be able to recoup nearly $350 million in overpayments on Obamacare tax credits last year, and one top senator says he is worried that fraudsters will exploit the loophole to wring more cash out of the government.
Most customers in the health care law’s insurance exchanges get taxpayer-funded subsidies to help cover their premiums, and the amount is based on their expected earnings. At the end of the year, they are supposed to square their anticipated earnings with what they actually made. Because most exchange members received higher incomes — through promotions or better jobs — they have to repay the IRS.
PPACA dropouts cut enrollment by 1.5 million
Monday, July 13th, 2015” About 1.5 million people dropped off health insurance coverage rolls this year after failing to pay for policies they picked on the Obamacare marketplaces.
That left 10.2 million covered by Affordable Care Act policies as of March 31, up from 6.3 million at the end of 2014, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said today. Eighty- five percent got subsidies to help them afford coverage.
Making government our last resort
Monday, May 4th, 2015Indiana Economic Digest reports:
“We’ve found yet another reason to mistrust a government bureaucracy that takes money citizens earned and treats citizens like serfs. The government class often act like the put upon factory foremen, whether it is making the sick wait in a line too many don’t survive trying see a physician at a Veterans Hospital or forcing the poor to jump through innumerable hoops to obtain Medicaid while hoping a loophole can be found to disqualify a person obviously in need. This last cultural trend became widespread in Indiana during Mitch Daniels’ time as governor. It was his administration’s weakness to fail to commit to excellence in doing those things his government was committed to do – including helping poor and disabled people. Those entitled, and we use the word without negative connotation, were poorly served.Bureaucrats, while often fine people outside of their profession, work much the same in most places and in most of history – the old Soviet Union, the old Bureau of Motor Vehicles and of course the new Internal Revenue Service.
