Empowering patient voices through voter registration
While roughly 83% of adults in the United States will visit a health care provider in the next year, an estimated
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10-26-12 Affordable Care Act Update
October 26, 2012
State Update
As everyone knows, the impact of next month's presidential and congressional elections will have a significant impact on the nation's health care policy moving forward. Additionally, the winners of state gubernatorial contests will play an important role in implementing aspects of the federal law. The outcomes of three tight state gubernatorial races (Montana, New Hampshire and Washington), in particular, will determine the future of Medicaid and health insurance marketplaces in those states. Attached is a story highlighting the electoral choices and the impact on health care that voters will make in those three states and in the country as a whole.
CQ_State Races Will Affect Medicaid, Exchanges_10.19.12.docx
Rate Reviews Hold Down Size of Premium Increases
A Kaiser Family Foundation report examines the effect of government efforts focused on guaranteeing that insurance premium increases are justified and provide value to consumers and small businesses. Rate review programs require insurers in small group and individual markets to submit planned rate increase requests to state or federal regulators, who determine if the requests are reasonable. The report finds that one out of every five requests submitted in 2011 resulted in a lower rate increase or no increase at all. On average, approved rate increases were 1.4 percent lower than insurers first requested -- a reduction of about one-fifth.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires all insurers submitting rate increases of 10 percent or more to be subject to rate review programs. The federal government conducts reviews if a state does not have an effective rate review program, but it cannot prevent insurers from implementing "unreasonable" rates. Evidence suggests that insurers have made fewer requests to raise rates by 10 percent or more after the ACA's rate review provisions went into effect.
More Children Insured Following Eligibility Protections
The Georgetown University Center for Children and Families found in a recent study that the nation continues to make progress providing health care coverage to children, despite the fact that the number of children living in poverty remains steady.
By protecting children's eligibility levels, the ACA helped decrease the number of uninsured children from 6.4 million in 2009 to 5.5 million in 2011. Half of all uninsured children live in six states - Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, New York, and Texas - but full implementation of the ACA will provide states with increased opportunities to make progress in children's health care coverage.
As always, thank you for all you do every day to support laws and policies that help cancer patients and their families.
Chris Hansen | President
ACS Cancer Action Network | American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, Inc.