Category: Health Insurance

CBO: Other Peoples’ Money is Popular, as is Freedom to Choose

stethoscope-on-moneyThe big news on Thursday was that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its score of the American Health Care Act (AHCA). The CBO claimed 23 million people would lose coverage within a decade under provisions found in the AHCA.

  • About 10 million people would purportedly lose coverage due to the repealing of the individual and employer mandates.
  • Another 5 million are low-income individuals living in states that did not expand Medicaid.

Basically, this is another way of saying 10 million people will decide they’d rather keep their money than have poor-value health coverage. It’s hard to understand how someone can lose something they never actually had?

Read More » »

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint
May 25, 2017 | 13 comments | by

Drain the Health Care Swamp that’s Awash in Other Peoples’ Money

Caduceus with First-aid Kit --- Image by © Royalty-Free/Corbis

Caduceus with First-aid Kit — Image by © Royalty-Free/Corbis

The 2017 winner of the Miss USA pageant ignited a firestorm on Twitter when she opined that nobody is entitled to thousands of dollars worth of free goods and services which they did not earn. The tempest in a teapot resulted when Kára McCullough said health care is a privilege, not a right. Her answer was far from perfect; she mentioned that to have health coverage you need to work.

Read More » »

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint
May 18, 2017 | 57 comments | by

How Technology & Health Care Systems Impact the Cost of Healthcare

stethoscope-on-moneyThe United States spends about $3 trillion on health care annually, nearly $10,000 per capita — accounting for about 18 percent of gross domestic product. Medical technology is costly, but it is not the only reason medicine is expensive. A variety of factors are to blame for what makes health care expensive in this country and abroad.

Read More » »

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint
May 09, 2017 | 58 comments | by

New Harris/HealthDay Poll Finds Americans are Fickle; Uninformed.

Capture53A New Harris / HealthDay Poll came out that finds many Americans do not really understand how insurance works.  Ok, what it officially found is rising support for the Affordable Care Act. About 41% want to improve the Affordable Care Act (ACA) rather than replace it. One-quarter (25%) want to repeal the ACA, while 21% want to leave it “as is”.

Read More » »

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint
May 04, 2017 | 4 comments | by

How to Solve the Pre-Existing Condition Problem

moneyThe primary sticking point in health reform is what to do with high -cost individuals who have pre-existing health conditions. People with episodic medical needs are easy to insure, while those with persistent needs are far more difficult unless insurers are allowed to underwrite enrollees’ risk. Republicans have long favored high-risk pools to cover individuals who are otherwise uninsurable. Prior to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) just over two-thirds of states had some type of high-risk pool. Most people turned down prior to the Affordable Care Act could ultimately obtain coverage either at a higher price or after meeting some preconditions. In 2011, high-risk pool enrollment varied from 0.1% in Alabama to a high of 10.2% in Minnesota. By most accounts only about 2% of people are uninsurable. However, one Kaiser Family Foundation study argues the actual rate may be a dozen times higher.

Read More » »

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint
Apr 25, 2017 | 57 comments | by

Obamacare Repeal & Replace 2.0: Where Do We Go From Here?

220px-Tom_PriceThe failed House Republican American Health Care Act (AHCA) was always a work in progress. The three-phased approach to reform health care called for passage of the AHCA to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) taxes and mandates; and slow the growth in Medicaid (phase one). Phase two was the selective tweaking of Obamacare regulations by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Phase three was to be a forthcoming health care bill to revamp onerous insurance regulations.

Read More » »

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint
Mar 29, 2017 | 85 comments | by

House Obamacare Repeal Bill Limits HSAs for Millions of Americans

Hand Holding Cash ca. 1998

Hand Holding Cash ca. 1998

The House Republican American Health Care Act Managers Amendment would not allow Americans to use their tax credits to fund an HSA. Instead of using their tax credit/HSA to pay for doctor visits, prescriptions and OTC drugs, Americans will only be allowed to use their credit for insurance. This is a big mistake – and a giveaway to insurers. Millions more Americans would have an HSA if the proposed $2,000 to $4,000 tax credits were automatically deposited into individuals’ HSAs for use on health insurance premiums, copays, cost-sharing and paying for direct care.

Read More » »

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint
Mar 21, 2017 | 27 comments | by

Where Does Your Insurance Premium Go?

InsFormSmallAHIP, the trade association for health insurers, has a nifty infographic answering the question: “Where does your premium dollar go?”

Obviously designed to defray accusations that health insurers earn too much profit, the infographic shows “net margin: of only three percent. A full 80 percent of our premium dollar goes to paying medical, hospital, and prescription claims.”

Fair enough. However, the elephant in the infographic is the 18 percent of premium that goes to “operating costs.” Lest you think that’s a synonym for “overhead” or “bureaucracy,” AHIP helpfully explains: “Operating costs include consumer-centric activities such as communicating with members, running customer service operations, quality reviews, and data analysis, among other activities.”

Well, readers have to judge how “consumer-centric” those operations are.

Read More » »

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint
Mar 21, 2017 | 7 comments | by

Health Insurance A Cause Of Past-Due Debt?

credit-card-2A study of past-due medical debt by Michael Karpman and Kyle J. Kaswell of the Urban Institute demonstrates the expansion of coverage subsequent to the Affordable Care Act is associated with a reduction in the proportion of adults with past-due medical debt.

In 2012, 29.6 percent of U.S. adults had past-due medical debt, versus just 23.8 percent in 2015. The study does not define “past-due,” nor the average amount of medical debt that is past-due. However, it cites research that almost half of debt in collections is owed to hospitals and other providers.

Although health insurance is supposed to protect us from such a situation, it often does not. Among insured people, 26.6 percent had past-due medical debt in 2012, versus 22.8 percent in 2015. However, among uninsured people it declined more: 39.8 percent in 2012, versus 30.5 percent in 2015. What to make of this?

Read More » »

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint
Mar 15, 2017 | 3 comments | by

Replacing Obamacare with A Means-Tested Tax Credit

HSAIn his joint address to Congress last Tuesday, President Trump promoted the idea of a tax credit to support people’s purchase of health care. This is in line with the approach taken by Secretary Tom Price when he was in Congress, and that of the House Republican leadership.

Some self-styled conservatives oppose a refundable tax credit because it would cost taxpayers a lot of money. That which we currently understand to be the Republican replacement bill would offer a tax credit to individuals based on age but not on income, if they do not get employer-based health benefits.

That may be changing to a means-tested tax credit in order to win the support of conservative Republican lawmakers. “Oh, the irony,” exclaims one journalist: Don’t those Republicans know Obamacare contains means-tested tax credits? It’s still Obamacare-Lite!

No, it would not be.

Read More » »

Print Friendly, PDF & EmailPrint
Mar 06, 2017 | 89 comments | by
Next Page »