Healthcare Compliance Inc: February 2017

Wednesday, 22 February 2017

Obamacare Becoming Popular with Voters During Trump’s Presidency

Understanding every aspect of ObamaCare can be daunting, but getting the gist isnt hard.

Obamacare is getting more popular with voters even as President Donald Trump moves to get rid of the landmark health-care law.

A total of 45 percent of registered voters say they approve of Obamacare, compared to 45 percent who oppose the law, a new Politico/Morning Consult poll finds.

Since early January — weeks before Trump moved into the White House — there has been a drop of seven percentage points among voters opposed to Obamacare.

Trump and fellow Republicans who hold control of Congress have said they want to repeal the ACA and replace it with new health-care legislation. The GOP says that Obamacare is a failed program that has led to increasing premiums and onerous out-of-pocket charges to many Americans.

ObamaCare can help decrease your deductible if you qualify for Cost Sharing Reduction subsidies on the Marketplace.

Tuesday, 21 February 2017

A Solution for the Affordable Care Act

Discussion of the Affordable Care Act often incites fear, confusion, and anger in people both for and against its passage.

Despite the political challenges, it’s very clear that the new administration and Congress are moving forward on their promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This gives them a chance to fix the ACA’s weaknesses, while preserving and building on what it got right.

Guiding their reform should be the principles that healthcare should be accessible to every American, be high quality, and be affordable. Upholding all three principles means, first and foremost, enacting policies that better harness market competition. In countless industries from manufacturing to services to retail, market competition works, delivering more value to more people. But in healthcare, structural shortfalls of the market stifle choice and competition and drive up cost.

Policymakers should retain and improve the ACA’s existing health care exchanges as one option for access to health care plans. To foster competition and choice, they should open the exchanges to all individuals served in the “natural” healthcare market which could reach beyond state lines — not just the ACA’s strict state boundaries. As a result, many healthcare consumers would benefit from pricing unique to their respective area (consider the cost of doing business in New York City versus the state’s rural areas). This reform would change the status quo “cookie cutter” policy, in which only one exchange must serve an entire state but not exceed its boundaries, even into contiguous metropolitan areas.

Have questions regarding the Affordable Care Act often called ObamaCare?

Monday, 20 February 2017

Could California fund the Medi-Cal Expansion on its Own ?

Covered California is the only place where you can use new tax credits to help pay insurance premiums.

A repeal of the Affordable Care Act could jeopardize up to $140 million per year in federal funding that pays for the Medi-Cal expansion in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, said Bob Freeman, who administers the program as the CEO of CenCal Health. Nearly one in three Santa Barbara County residents – and more than one in three statewide – are now enrolled in Medi-Cal, getting free or low-cost care.

Santa Barbara County has seen a 68 percent increase in all Medi-Cal enrollment over pre-reform levels, wildly exceeding expectations, said Maria Gardner, a deputy director of the county Department of Social Services.

Covered California, the marketplace for private insurance under the law, has some very high deductibles, and that is hard for patients, Ransohoff said. But, he said, it would be devastating to return to the days when people went bankrupt to pay their medical bills and faced ruined lives.

Covered California often requests document proofs from you to verify evidences like your income or citizenship.

Thursday, 16 February 2017

Trump Undermines Obamacare Exchanges While Trying to Save Them

ObamaCare can only do so much to protect your rights.

With the drive to “repeal and replace” Obamacare losing steam, the Trump administration quietly moved to shore up a key feature of the healthcare law this week: the state exchanges where people shop for non-group coverage. And to its credit, Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services zeroed in on some of the factors that have led a handful of major insurers to leave the exchanges.

But before you praise (or condemn) Trump for coming to Obamacare’s rescue, consider this: Another arm of the new administration has taken a step that could undo much of the work the department is trying to do, and leave the exchanges no better off — and possibly in worse shape — than they are today.

The real threat to the exchanges’ health remains the specter of Congress enacting a law that repeals all or part of Obamacare in two or three years. Planting such a legislative time bomb would have an immediate impact, sending the market for non-group insurance policies quickly into chaos, according to analysts from both sides of the political spectrum. As John Rother of the pro-Obamacare National Coalition on Health Care put it, “[N]o market stabilization effort can succeed if policymakers disrupt existing coverage arrangements rather than improving on them.”

Proponents of ObamaCare often point to expanded coverage as proof that ObamaCare is working.

Tuesday, 14 February 2017

Rest Of The U.S. Could Learn From Covered California

In its advertising, Covered California often played up the benefits of Obamacare, such as guaranteed coverage regardless of pre-existing conditions and access to checkups and mammograms.

A five-state study of Obamacare health insurance exchanges finds California’s to be the “most successful” of the group. Researchers say the state’s experience may provide valuable lessons to lawmakers in Congress seeking to “repeal and replace” the federal health reform law.

California’s exchange, Covered California, has succeeded in large part because of its ability to retain a “relatively large” number of insurers compared with other states, according to the study, sponsored by The Brookings Institution.

Officials also boosted the fortunes of the exchange by aggressively negotiating premiums with insurers and imposing conditions on their participation. And Covered California helped facilitate the enrollment of low-income consumers, the study notes.

Research teams conducting The Brookings study took a deep-dive look at California, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina and Texas to determine what has worked, what hasn’t and why.

Covered California is the only place where you can use new tax credits to help pay insurance premiums.