The Congressional Hispanic Caucus sent a letter to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Tom Price Thursday, demanding he meet with members about Affordable Care Act (ACA) open enrollment. Members were prompted by recent reports that no one from the Trump administration had reached out to key members of the Latino ACA outreach coalition to begin preparing for the open enrollment session, which begins November 1.
Members of the coalition, like the League of United L...
health care
Trump agrees to pay key Obamacare subsidies, extending its lifeline
Everyone and their doctor has asked President Donald Trump to continue funding Obamacare cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments. After flirting with eliminating these payments to insurance companies, he finally agreed to pay them for the month of August. A White House spokesman told multiple news sources on Wednesday that the Trump administration will make the payment.
CONFIRMED: Trump administration will make the August CSR Obamacare payments, a WH spokesman tel...
Texas governor signs controversial ‘rape insurance’ abortion coverage into law
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) signed a bill Tuesday afternoon, approved by the Senate over the weekend, that would prohibit all insurance companies from covering non-life threatening abortion care in standard health plans. Women, trans, and non-binary people will need to pay an additional insurance premium if they want their health plan to cover abortions performed outside medical emergencies; there will be no exceptions for instances of rape or incest. Opponents of the bill are calling it &#...
Trump’s plan to sabotage Obamacare costs $200 billion and doesn’t really even sabotage Obamacare
For months, President Donald Trump has flirted with a tactic that could help make “Obamacare implode” — thus potentially forcing House and Senate Democrats to negotiate on a way to dismantle the law. On Tuesday, however, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report on what would actually happen if Trump implemented this tactic, and the results are less than spectacular.
For the most part, Obamacare would continue chugging along as usual. But the federal ...
Obamacare is imploding in one state
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace is not imploding. As the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Drew Altman pointed out, the ACA stability crisis is a matter of perspective. To understand how the marketplace is doing, you’d need to look state by state or perhaps county by county to more accurately assess. A tweet can’t contextualize this.
In broad strokes, most ACA beneficiaries will go unaffected by 2018 premium hikes and have at least one insurer option. When insur...
Republicans will try to bring back Obamacare repeal, despite unpopularity with Americans
The House Freedom Caucus will file a petition Friday in an effort to get House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) to bring a “clean” Obamacare repeal bill to the House floor, despite the fact that 60 percent of Americans think it is a “good thing” that the Senate failed to pass the bill that would have repealed and replaced Obamacare.
The news that Republicans in Congress will once again attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was first reported by Politico on Friday — the same ...
A doctor on the front lines describes Medicaid’s role in the opioid crisis
For decades, the residents of Baltimore, have been dying from opioid overdoses and have been incarcerated due to addiction.
“There’s no doubt that the opioid epidemic is worse than before, but it’s not a new problem,” says Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen. “I do think there are elements of racial inequalities, racial disparities, racial discrimination, and that needs to be taken into account.”
Baltimore has been a leader among localitie...
Study: Trump’s actions are directly responsible for rising health care premiums
Despite the repeated failure of Republicans in Congress to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Trump has succeeded in raising health care premiums.
A number of insurers who provide coverage through the Obamacare marketplaces have requested double digit rate increases for the coming year, and the majority cite uncertainty about the actions of the Trump administrations as the reason for the requested increases, according to a new study released Thursday.
The study, from...
Abandoning Latino Obamacare outreach is poor policy planning
Key members of the Latino Affordable Care Act (ACA) outreach coalition told Talking Points Memo the Trump administration has not reached out to begin preparing for open enrollment that begins November 1st.
By this point last year, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) and other major Latino organizations, like the National Hispanic Medical Association and National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health and Concilio, would be in the midst of enrollment frenzy. But th...
How Obamacare enrollees could avoid skyrocketing premiums
“Rising premiums” has been the rallying cry for Republicans looking to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Lawmakers pointed to 2018 premium hikes as a big reason to repeal and replace current health law. Some insurance companies are requesting especially high rates for 2018 ACA plans, as high as 30 percent or more in some states.
In California, statewide premiums will rise 12.5 percent, and some northern counties will see a 33 percent increase. But most California res...