It’s late August, and state officials who work in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace in Nevada and Oregon say they still have not been contacted by their federal partners about open enrollment, which is slated to begin November 1. This is the latest testimony in a string of recent reports that suggest the president meant what he said when ACA repeal efforts in Congress failed last month: “let Obamacare implode.”
Nevada’s ACA health insurance marketplace avoi...
obamacare
The trap the Supreme Court set for Democrats’ best health care ideas
Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI), Vox’s Sarah Kliff and Jeff Stein report, has a smart new plan to improve America’s health care system: allowing ordinary health insurance consumers to buy into Medicaid.
The proposal combines many of the beneficial aspects of former President Barack Obama’s original proposal for a public health plan — a government backstop for people who can’t find good insurance on the private market, a benchmark plan that can potentially driv...
Paul Ryan is lying about Obamacare collapsing
House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said Monday evening at a town hall that “dozens of counties” across the country have no insurer on the Obamacare marketplace. But in reality, not a single county currently has no insurer and just one is at risk of not having an insurer next year.
“The status quo is not an option. Obamacare is not working,” Ryan told a constituent who asked about the GOP’s ongoing efforts to repeal and potentially replace the Affordable Care act. “A third of the c...
Congressional Hispanic Caucus demands Secretary Price prioritize Obamacare Latino outreach
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...
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...
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...
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...
Senate Republicans quietly wave the white flag on Obamacare repeal
Multiple Republican lawmakers seem to have dismissed Trump’s call to keep moving on health care.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., listens to a question while speaking with the media, June 27, 2017. CREDIT: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
After six months of Republican-led closed door meetings on health care, Senate leadership finally looks to be pivoting.
On Tuesday at the Senate committee on...