The net – we’re further away from repeal and replace than we were even a week ago.

The details

There’s been a good deal of understandable confusion about the fate of ACA; first it was going to be repealed on Day One of the new Administration, then January 27 was the day, now it’s either sometime late this year or early next. Or perhaps, not.

What’s indisputable is this;  undoing ACA and “replacing” it with legislation that will reduce costs, increase coverage options, and not leave anyone with coverage today uninsured is not possible – unless drastic cost-reduction measures are implemented, measures that are anathema to free-market Republicans.

Republicans sought to use the budget reconciliation process to undo much of ACA, figuring that would allow them to kill components such as the mandate that are particularly offensive to the GOP, while working on a replacement bill that might or might not be passed with a final “repeal” bill.  As reconciliation bills can’t be filibustered, the initial step in the repeal process passed easily.

But here’s the problem – the proverbial clock is ticking, and the longer this drags on, the less likely it is a Repeal/Replace bill will happen.  

First, insurers MUST have some idea what will happen in 2018 before they can come up with rates for coverage in the Exchanges. And they need to know this by May 3 – at the very latest.

Second, Governors need to know what’s going to happen with Medicaid. Seniors need to know what their Medicare Advantage costs will be.  Hospitals need to know what they will get paid for Medicare, Medicaid, and in DSH and other payments before they can set prices.

As has been well-documented here, there’s little consensus among Congressional Republicans on what a replacement would look like. And there are a bunch of other high-priority bills that are must-pass; tax reform, budget, spending and the like, all of which will take a lot of time off the legislative calendar.

And there’s this – Once a budget resolution for 2018 is passed, the current ACA reconciliation bill is null and void. While it’s possible Republicans delay the Fiscal Year 2018 resolution as they try to cobble together a replacement bill, this will greatly complicate the legislative process, likely hinder another key priority – tax reform, and as of today there’s no consensus even among Republicans on what “replacement” would look like.

While it’s theoretically possible Republicans pass another reconciliation bill for the FY 2018 budget year to further kick the ACA can down the road, it’s highly unlikely.

Lots more detail on this here.

What does this mean for you?

Yes, it’s certainly possible ACA will be repealed and replaced. Just a little less possible with each passing day.

Happy Monday!  Up here in the northeast we’re still digging out from a major snowstorm that’s a long way from being over.

I’ll make a lousy analogy; that’s pretty much what’s happening in DC.  For local governments, getting the snow off the streets is the political test that ensures mayors another term, or ends their political career.

Healthcare is the national equivalent, with a rather important difference.  Unlike snow removal, healthcare is devilishly complicated.  It’s not just coordination of more plows, salt, drivers, and tow trucks.

Premium subsidies are one example.  About $9 billion goes towards helping poorer folks pay their deductibles, copays, and other costs.  Back when Republicans were in the opposition, they sued the Obama Administration to block those payments. If the suit were to succeed today, insurers would suddenly find themselves forced to:

• come up with the $9 billion out of their own pockets or
• terminate coverage for millions of members.

Not surprisingly, Republicans have apparently decided to keep paying the premium subsidies for the time being.

Kicking-the-can-down-the-road doesn’t do anything other than prolong the inevitable, which, stated simply, is this: Congressional Republicans are stuck.  It’s not possible to ensure poorer folks keep their coverage while reducing costs and de-regulating the health insurance markets.

Pre-election promises that voters can “Have their cake, Eat it too, and Not get fat” are coming up against the hard reality that healthcare is really complicated; and insurance companies, pharma, doctors, and healthcare systems are in business to make profits.

For insurers to be profitable, they have to:

• enroll lots of people by charging premiums low enough to
• get enough healthy people to join so they can pay for sick peoples’ care, yet
• set premiums high enough to pay pharma and healthcare providers so those industries make a profit;

Without premium subsidies, lots of lower-income people can’t afford insurance, insurance companies can’t afford to insure those people, and more and more healthy people will drop coverage. Republicans’ apparent decision to maintain premium support will keep things calm for now.  The individual market looks pretty stable – rate increases have stabilized and enrollment, despite Republicans’ efforts to hinder sign-ups, is adequate.

Eventually the healthcare “snow” is going to pile up deep enough that Congress is going to have to start plowing.

Either that, or this…

What does this mean for you?

Don’t expect much REAL progress on healthcare legislation in the next month or two.  Or maybe even longer.

Got your shovel ready?

The news from the White House is the “replacement” isn’t going to appear until the end of this year – or perhaps sometime in 2018.

That’s a very good thing.

For those that have been following our ACA Deathwatch, that is no surprise.  In fact it’s a good thing, as the plans proffered by Ryan, HHS-Secretary-designee Price, and various other Republicans are short on details, conflict with Republican Governors’ wishes, and would result in major disruption to health insurance markets and imperil the Medicare Trust Fund.

There is no consensus among Republicans around key aspects of a replacement plan or the timing thereof. The White House’ latest announcement is at odds both with previous statements that the replacement bill would be released right after Tom Price’s confirmation as HHS Secretary, Speaker Ryan’s commitment to introduce a bill in March and Majority Leader McConnell’s promised timetable.

Here are the key problems facing the Repeal-and-Replace crowd.

• ACA is NOT a bunch of totally separate and stand-alone laws, regulations, fees, taxes, policy requirements, and standards. The fees, taxes, and reimbursement changes provide funding for Medicaid expansion, Seniors’ drug costs, premium support, technology, guideline development, and hundreds of other initiatives, many close to the heart of really powerful constituencies.
  Republican leaders who once hooted at the length and complexity of the ACA bill are now learning that fixing healthcare is, shockingly, really complicated.
• Republican Governors are quite concerned that a replacement will drastically cut funding they rely on for Medicaid, community health centers, public health, and other budget-critical programs. They expanded Medicaid based on a promise that the Feds would pay almost all of that cost; none of the plans currently under discussion live up to that promise.
• AARP is marshalling its very large and very vocal membership to complain about higher premiums for the 50-64 year old group that would result from changing age bands and reductions to Medicaid that would hurt dual-eligibles.
• Budget hawks are stuck because repealing ACA – or even just the taxes that are part of ACA – would lead to Medicare insolvency as early as this year.
• Most troubling of all – loss aversion.  Now that people have coverage, they will be furious if Republicans don’t deliver on their oft-stated promises to reduce costs, preserve coverage, and expand choice.  And no, the attempts by politicians to wordsmith their way out of this commitment by talking about “healthcare access” and “access to insurance” will NOT placate voters who lose coverage.

This last is the key.

The political cost to Republicans of failing to deliver on an impossible campaign promise will be high indeed.  For now, they are going to push the deadline out as far as possible, perhaps pass a repeal-in-name-only bill, then wait till after the mid-term elections – or even the next presidential election – before doing anything serious.

What does this mean for you?

Republicans won’t pass and sign a true repeal bill for months.

After a few days of wonderful California weather and Golden State hospitality its back to work.

There’s been so much coming out of DC on all manner of topics healthcare has been somewhat under-covered.  No worries – I got this.

Quick take is Senate Republicans are no closer to a repeal today than they were a month ago. In fact, the “repeal clock” has moved backwards over that time as key Senate Rs have realized repeal is fraught with political landmines.

This bubbled up publicly when Sen Alexander, Chair of Senate HELP Committee and Sen Hatch got into a disagreement over Hatch’s push to repeal the tax provisions of ACA now, then work on a replacement later.

Hatch’s move would have effectively forced many insurers to drop their insureds’ coverage this year, as without premium support low-income insureds would have no funds to cover their share of the premiums deductibles, etc. Insurers would be faced with the need to either a) come up with the money themselves or b) drop out of coverage leaving insureds without coverage.

Alexander’s position was strengthened yesterday by multiple announcements from big insurers about likely withdrawals from the individual markets, as well as news that both the Senate and the House have scaled back plans to do a big bill to repeal and replace ACA.

What does this mean for you?

ACA Repeal is NOT a done deal.

Here are questions you may want to ask about what a “repeal” and “replacement” will do.

1. What will happen to your premiums?
   If more young people sign up, premiums for us older folks go down. If there is no mandate to buy insurance (and the continuous coverage requirement is far weaker than a mandate), insurance premiums for the 50+ crowd are going to go up – a lot. That’s because healthy seniors will decide the premiums are too high, so the only folks that will buy insurance will be the sick ones.  Insurers know this, so they will either a) exit the market; b) raise premiums to the moon; c) drastically limit coverage for specific medical conditions like heart disease or cancer; or d) go bankrupt.
2. Is your medical condition still covered?
   ACA requires almost all insurance plans cover all physical and mental health conditions under the essential health benefits requirement. Replacement plans under consideration have no such requirements, allowing insurance companies to exclude specific types of treatment, specific conditions, types of providers, etc.
3. Is addiction treatment covered?
   Currently mental health coverage is required for most employee and individual plans. Given the huge problems we face with opioid and crystal meth addiction, will a replacement plan require coverage for those seeking to end their addiction? Before ACA, about a third of individual insurance plans didn’t cover addiction treatment. And you can bet your house “replacement” insurance plans wouldn’t offer coverage…
4. Can insurers limit coverage for medical diagnoses or conditions?
   Under ACA, there are NO lifetime or annual caps for specific medical conditions. The “replacement” plans allow insurers to set arbitrary caps for any diagnosis – cancer, heart disease, orthopedic injuries, or any other category they define.
5. What happens if you lose your job and can’t afford to pay for individual health insurance while you are looking for work?
   Under the replacement plans, if you have a “gap in coverage” where you don’t have health insurance, when you apply for new coverage your insurer doesn’t have to cover your pre-existing medical conditions, and/or they can charge you higher rates.
6. Who pays for emergency care for those without health insurance?
   Before ACA family insurance premiums included about $1000 for the additional cost of indigent care due to cost-shifting.  If the number of uninsureds grows – as it most certainly will – they will get care at hospital emergency rooms (hospitals are required to care for anyone presenting with emergent needs regardless of insurance status). So, this “hidden tax” will almost certainly increase your premiums.
7. Will you be able to buy cheaper insurance from out-of-state health insurers?
   No.  There are three states that allow that today – and NO out-of-state insurers are selling across state lines.

Late Friday the Republican Study Committee released its ACA Repeal Bill.

No word on a replacement plan as of this writing.

Key points

• A tax credit of $7,500 (individuals) or $20,500 (families) which will apply to income and payroll taxes, and will be indexed for inflation at the same rate as CPI-U. The credit does NOT vary by a person’s income level, so folks making $10,000 a year get the same amount as multi-millionnaires.
• Fund high-risk pools at $2.5 billion a year for 10 years for those people who can’t get insurance on the open market (note high risk pools have historically not worked over the long term due to state budget limits and increasing costs due to adverse selection)
• Requirement that individuals MUST stay continuously insured to avoid pre-existing condition limits. Lots of problems with this…
• Allow sale of insurance across state lines – an initiative that is already in place in three states – and no insurer has EVER done this because it doesn’t work.

For several reasons outlined succinctly in a piece in Health Affairs last week, repeal without replace is problematic. Best guess is the final repeal legislation will call for a replacement within 3 years.

Finally, there is still no consensus among Republicans on a strategy re replacement, much less what a replacement bill would involve.