The Moral Healthcare Blog

10 companies submit health insurance product applications in Pa. – Philadelphia Business Journal

Ten insurance companies have submitted products to be included in the Pennsylvania health insurance marketplaces set to open Oct. 1.

• Aetna Health Ins. Co.

• Aetna Life Ins. Co.

• Capital Advantage Assurance Company

• Capital Advantage Insurance Company

• First Priority Life Ins. Co.

• Geisinger Health Plan

• Geisinger Quality Options

• HealthAmerica PA

• Highmark

• HM Health Ins. Co.

• Keystone Health Plan Central

• Keystone Health Plan East

• QCC Ins. Co.

• UPMC Health Network

• UPMC Healthplan Inc.

Keystone Health Plan East and QCC are affiliates of Independence Blue Cross, the Philadelphia region’s largest health insurer.

10 companies submit health insurance product applications in Pa. – Philadelphia Business Journal

Uninsured in Texas and Florida – NYTimes.com

A new Census Bureau report documents the alarming percentages of people in Texas and Florida without health insurance. Leaders of both states should hang their heads in shame because they have been among the most resistant in the nation to providing coverage for the uninsured under the Affordable Care Act, the law that Republicans deride as “Obamacare.”

Uninsured in Texas and Florida – NYTimes.com

“Secretary of ‘splaining” – NYTimes.com

“I have agreed to give this talk today because I am still amazed at how much misunderstanding there is about the current system of health care, how it works, how it compares with what other people in other countries pay for health care,” Mr. Clinton told the crowd assembled in a hall around the corner from a montage of black-and-white photographs of the 1992 presidential campaign. The audience of about 250 included Gov. Mike Beebe, a Democrat, and Speaker Davy Carter of the Legislature and Michael Lamoureux, president of the State Senate, both Republicans.

Despite the bipartisan show, health care is a contentious topic in Arkansas politics that conservatives have seized on in local campaigns. Mr. Pryor did not attend the event for risk of being too closely associated with the health care law, according to one person with knowledge of his plans, but who was not authorized to discuss them publicly. A campaign spokesman has said that Mr. Pryor had a scheduling conflict.

With the new insurance markets set to open on Oct. 1 for an initial six-month enrollment period, the White House has asked cabinet officers and other presidential appointees to step up efforts to promote the law. The administration has also recruited actors and entertainers and is seeking athletes and disc jockeys to whip up enthusiasm. Last week, the singer Katy Perry retweeted a Twitter post from President Obama encouraging young people to sign up for coverage. He responded, “Thanks for spreading the word.”

Mr. Clinton’s speech, which the White House broadcast live on its Web site, was not the first time that the former president, whose own attempt to sell a universal health care law failed drastically in his first term, has stepped into the debate over the new law. At the Democratic National Convention last September, Mr. Clinton delivered an endorsement of Mr. Obama that included concrete, well-received explanations of his policies, including on health care. That speech in particular signaled to the White House that Mr. Clinton could be an effective surrogate to sell the highly complicated Affordable Care Act.

On Wednesday, the former president carefully laid out Mr. Obama’s plan without delving into politics. But his mere involvement in selling the law provides him with a platform to reframe the failed battles of “Hillarycare” from his own administration.

“It would not be in her interest to be running for president and have this be a huge controversial issue in 2016,” said Robert J. Blendon, a professor of health policy at Harvard who closely follows public opinion of the law. “The Clintons have a lot of interest in getting this up and working and making it a legacy for the Democratic side.”

Reading glasses perched on his nose, Mr. Clinton struck a professorial tone as he explained in extensive detail the intricacies of the act. He laid out who would qualify for federal subsidies to help pay for the cost of coverage through the new markets and even ticked off Web addresses and phone numbers where Americans could find information.

Clinton Urges Americans to Sign Up for Health Care Exchanges – NYTimes.com

Community groups feel heat of D.C. health-care battle

The letter from Washington arrived on Laura Line’s desk Wednesday, three weeks after her nonprofit won a federal grant to help consumers make sense of the health-insurance marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act and four weeks before they were to open for business.

It gave her nine days to provide Republicans on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce with all details and documents, electronic and paper, in her possession and not, involving the $953,716 her organization is getting to assist with health-insurance enrollment in 10 Pennsylvania counties.

"The letter doesn’t concern us; it just adds to our workload," said Line, corporate assistant director for health care at Resources for Human Development, a national social services organization based in Philadelphia. "We are working at an incredible pace to try to be ready for Oct. 1," she said. "It will definitely distract us from what we are trying to do, which is to get health-insurance coverage for uninsured and underinsured residents who qualify in the marketplace."

Republicans said the letter was an attempt to protect tax dollars and personal medical information. Democrats said it was intended to sow confusion and undermine health reform.

The vitriol and hyperpartisanship that accompanied President Obama’s health overhaul at first seemed to be largely rooted in Washington, where it was passed on party-line votes in 2010 and largely upheld by the Supreme Court in 2012. When that decision made optional the law’s main provision for insuring low-income people – an expansion of Medicaid – much of the battle shifted to state capitals.

Now, with the six-month open-enrollment period approaching for the insurance-exchange marketplaces, opponents are aiming at community organizations that will be working with consumers.

Community groups feel heat of D.C. health-care battle

Navigators Say GOP Lawmakers’ Information Requests Are ‘Shocking’ – Kaiser Health News

Organizations that received the latest round of health law navigator grants say last week’s letter from House Republicans could have a chilling effect on efforts to hire and train outreach workers to sign up Americans for health insurance by Oct. 1, the opening day for new online insurance marketplaces.

The letters were signed by 15 Republican members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and requested that the organizations provide extensive new documents about their participation in the program and schedule a congressional briefing by Sept. 13. The letters went out to 51 organizations–including hospitals, universities, Indian tribes, patient advocacy groups and food banks—out of 104 that shared $67 million in grants.

"I find the letter quite offensive," says Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, which received a $1.9 million grant. "It is shocking. It is absolutely shocking."

The organizations, all in states where the federal government will be setting up insurance marketplaces, are already under a difficult time crunch, with just six weeks from the time they received the grants to hire, train and prepare outreach work forces.

"Was this an attempt by members of the committee to basically stop and slow down the navigator process?" Hamler-Fugitt says. "We’re going to stop now and pull together voluminous documents to provide back to the committee?"

Some of those documents don’t yet exist, she says. "We weren’t required to provide position papers, salary ranges, privacy policies or procedures. You don’t do that until you know that you got the award."

The Obama administration used stronger language in describing the letter last week, characterizing it as a "blatant and shameful attempt to intimidate."

Navigators Say GOP Lawmakers’ Information Requests Are ‘Shocking’ – Kaiser Health News

Major New Study On Obamacare Premiums Should End The ‘Rate Shock’ Hysteria Once And For All | ThinkProgress

The most comprehensive study on Obamacare to date finds that Americans’ insurance premiums under the health law will be “lower than expected.” Many Americans will pay even less than the top-line rates after factoring in government subsidies for their health coverage, with some paying nothing at all for crucial medical coverage.

The Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) looked at individual policy prices in the 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, that have released comprehensive numbers for their Obamacare insurance marketplaces. Since premiums under the law will vary based on factors such as age and geographic location, KFF chose to examine how much the second-least expensive “Silver” mid-level plan and the least-expensive bare-bones “Bronze” level plan would cost for 25-year-old, 40-year-old, and 60-year-old Americans in those 17 states’ largest cities. The report includes both the top-line prices for those demographics, as well as what their costs would be after factoring in government subsidies based on varying income levels.

According to KFF’s findings, a single 40-year-old in Los Angeles could buy the second-cheapest mid-level plan for $255 per month — but if that person makes just under $30,000 per year, he or she will only have to pay $193 per month after receiving a government subsidy.

Strikingly, in every city analyzed, a family of four with two 40-year-old adults and a household income of $60,000 per year would pay $409 per month for the second-cheapest Silver plan after receiving subsidies. That’s more or less in line with the average $4,565 per year that workers currently contribute towards their employer-sponsored health insurance plans.

The report also finds good news for younger and older Americans. In Seattle, a 25-year-old making $28,725 per year will pay $193 per month for a Silver plan after subsidies and $138 per month for the cheapest Bronze plan after subsidies. For a single 60-year-old with the same income, those number would be $193 per month and $44 per month, respectively, after factoring in subsidies. And in Burlington, Vermont, both a single 25-year-old making $25,000 per year and a 60-year-old couple making a combined $30,000 per year would pay nothing at all for the cheapest, bare-bones Bronze plan.

While the KFF researchers emphasized that there will be significant variation in Obamacare premiums depending on geographic location, they concluded that premiums would be lower than what the government expected, writing, “the latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office imply that the premium for a 40-year-old in the second lowest cost silver plan would average $320 per month nationally. Fifteen of the eighteen rating areas we examined have premiums below this level, suggesting that the cost of coverage for consumers and the federal budgetary cost for tax credits will be lower than anticipated.”

Major New Study On Obamacare Premiums Should End The ‘Rate Shock’ Hysteria Once And For All | ThinkProgress

Doctors and Their Medicare Patients – NYTimes.com

In the critics’ most dire scenarios, baby boomers nearing retirement age could find that their current doctors are no longer willing to treat them under Medicare and that other doctors are turning them down as well. Those concerns have always been greatly exaggerated. Now a new analysis by experts at the Department of Health and Human Services should demolish that mythology for good.
The analysts looked at seven years of federal survey data and found that doctors are not fleeing Medicare in droves; in fact, the percentage of doctors accepting new Medicare patients actually rose to 90.7 percent in 2012 from 87.9 percent in 2005. They are not shunning Medicare patients for better-paying private patients, either; the percentage of doctors accepting new Medicare patients in recent years was slightly higher than the percentage accepting new privately insured patients.
Medicare patients had comparable or better access to medical services than the access reported by privately insured individuals ages 50 to 64, who are just below the age for Medicare eligibility. Surveys sponsored by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an independent agency that advises Congress, found that 77 percent of the Medicare patients — compared with only 72 percent of privately insured patients — said they never had an unreasonably long wait for a routine doctor’s appointment last year.
The findings from this survey and others can be sliced and diced in many ways. But the overall picture is clear: nationwide there is no shortage of doctors for Medicare patients. It is likely to stay that way, because Medicare is a big insurer that few medical practices can afford to ignore.

Doctors and Their Medicare Patients – NYTimes.com

Obamacare Showdown Over a Ham Breakfast in Kentucky – NationalJournal.com

Beshear’s advocacy, by contrast, was striking in its intensity and in how personally he approached the issue, picking up on the idea that many people who don’t have health insurance are embarrassed by that and don’t talk about it.

The governor compared health insurance to "the safety net of crop insurance" and said farmers need both. He said 640,000 Kentuckians—15 percent of the state—don’t have health insurance and "trust me, you know many of those 640,000 people. You’re friends with them. You’re probably related to them. Some may be your sons and daughters. You go to church with them. Shop with them. Help them harvest their fields. Sit in the stands with them as you watch your kids play football or basketball or ride a horse in competition. Heck, you may even be one of them."

Beshear went on to say that "it’s no fun" hoping and praying you don’t get sick, or choosing whether to pay for food or medicine. He also said Kentucky is at or near the top of the charts on bad-health indicators, including heart disease, diabetes, cancer deaths, and preventable hospitalizations. He said all that affects everything from productivity and school attendance to health costs and the state’s image.

"We’ve ranked that bad for a long, long time," he said. "The Affordable Care Act is our historic opportunity to address this weakness and to change the course of the future of the commonwealth. We’re going to make insurance available for the very first time in our history to every single citizen of the commonwealth of Kentucky."

About half the audience burst into applause at that point while the other half sat on their hands. But he wasn’t done. He cited a study that showed the law would inject about $15.6 billion into the Kentucky economy over eight years, create 17,000 new jobs, and generate $802 million for the state budget.

"It’s amazing to me how people who are pouring time and money and energy into trying to repeal the Affordable Care Act sure haven’t put that kind of energy into trying to improve the health of Kentuckians. And think of the decades that they have had to make some kind of difference," Beshear finished pointedly.

Obamacare Showdown Over a Ham Breakfast in Kentucky – NationalJournal.com

Health costs are growing really slowly. Americans haven’t noticed.

Ask any health economist and they’ll no doubt tell you that health care cost growth is slowing, growing at a low, unprecedented rate.

They can point to the National Health Expenditures report, which shows health care costs now growing at the same rate as the rest of the economy. Or, they can pull up new data out Tuesday from the Kaiser Family Foundation, showing that premiums grew 4 percent in 2013. That’s way lower than growth in the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Ask any American about what direction health costs are moving, and you’ll likely get a completely different story. Preliminary results for a forthcoming Kaiser Family Foundation poll show that most Americans think that health care costs are actually growing faster than usual right now. Fewer than 10 percent say the growth is slowing down.

“We have a very moderate increase this year, but premiums go up each year,” Kaiser Family Foundation president Drew Altman says. “People see what they pay for their premium going up and perhaps more forms of cost-sharing. We’ve been seeing a quiet revolution from more comprehensive coverage to less.”

Altman said that preliminary results from his group’s survey show that 54 percent of Americans think health care costs are growing faster than average. “A tiny number said they were growing slower,” he says. “I think that’s because, if we look at this as a long term trend, health care costs have increased in excess of wages and inflation.”

The Affordable Care Act And People With Disabilities – Forbes

“ACA changes the world for persons with disabilities and funds who will now have a choice between public or private health insurance. For significant financial as well as health reasons, we believe that private health insurance, not Medicaid, will be soup d’jour for the vast majority of (Special Needs Trusts) SNT clients. We cannot know for certain, but I would not be surprised to see persons with disabilities leaving public health insurance (Medicaid) for the private market in January, 2012.

The most obvious and most significant health industry reform important to our SNT clients is the elimination of pre‐existing conditions as a bar to purchasing private health insurance. However, ACA also eliminates annual or lifetime caps, rescission of insurance policies, non‐renewability, and higher premium costs for persons with pre‐existing conditions. For individuals with significant medical problems, elimination of cost‐containment ceilings is just as important as access to the door of private medical care. It is not unusual to see clients who have maxed out their lifetime cap and are now seeking public health insurance.

Why would clients opt to pay for private health insurance rather than “free” Medicaid? The two major reasons are first, securing health insurance without a payback on death and second, access to significantly better medical care…

Change makes most of us uncomfortable, but change is a constant in our lives. This is one time when special needs attorneys can both lament the negative impact of national legislation on our personal financial well‐being, but rejoice in the concomitant good fortune of our clients with disabilities who can now join the private health insurance market with the rest of us as equal citizens with their dignity intact.”

The Affordable Care Act And People With Disabilities – Forbes