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11-11-10 Affordable Care Act Update
November 12, 2010
Below is this week’s update on the Affordable Care Act. As always, thank you for all you do every day to support laws and policies that help cancer patients and their families.
Congress Returns for Lame Duck Session Week of November 15th
Congress will return to Washington next week and begin to wrap up the FY11 budget and any legislative work that can be finished before the end of the year. The House and the Senate will recess the Thanksgiving week, and return on November29th,staying in session possibly through the first two weeks of December before adjourning the 111th Congress for good. The only “must pass” piece of legislation up for consideration during the ”lame duck” session is the FY11 budget, and the question is whether Congress will finish with an omnibus appropriations bill that goes until the end of the fiscal year, or whether they punt the issue to the next Congress in January by passing another temporary funding resolution. Members may address a scheduled reduction in Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors, which would take effect December 1 unless Congress acts. Lastly, discussions are continuing over whether Congress and the White House can come to some agreement on extending the Bush-era tax cuts, which are due to expire on December 31st.
As you may know, the new Republican leadership in the House has made clear that “repeal and replacement” of the Affordable Care Act is a major legislative priority for the coming year, and that a repeal bill will be brought to the House floor for a vote in January. If brought to a vote that bill will presumably pass the House, but will then subsequently die in the Senate. That process will then be followed by a less high-profile series of actions by congressional supporters and opponents of the law to build public support for their respective positions. For example, House committees will schedule hearings designed to criticize the law while Senate committees will structure hearings designed to highlight the benefits of the Act. There may also be attacks on the funding needed to implement the law.
It is important to note that while all this is going on the ACA implementation process will continue full steam ahead despite the battles taking place on Capitol Hill. As the implementation moves forward, and benefits begin to kick in, including tax subsidies for small businesses and individuals buying insurance, as well as largely unpublicized advantages like funding for training 20,000 new primary care doctors, the public will become more and more aware of the overall benefits of the new law.
See the selected articles below for additional context on the issue:
No Clear Path for GOP on Health Care Repeal (Associated Press)
Republicans say they'll repeal and replace President Barack Obama's health care law, but tinker and tweak is as far as they're likely to get.
Promise of Renewed Battle Over Reach of Health Care (New York Times)
While Republicans cannot fulfill their campaign promise to repeal the new health care law any time soon, they can lead Congress in a sweeping re-examination of its more unpopular provisions, including new taxes and a requirement for most Americans to carry health insurance.
G.O.P. to Fight Health Law with Purse Strings (New York Times)
As they seek to make good on their campaign promise to roll back President Obama’s health care overhaul, the incoming Republican leaders in the House say they intend to use their new muscle to cut off money for the law, setting up a series of partisan clashes and testing Democratic commitment to the legislation.
With Newly-Elected Governors, GOP Gains Clout To Fight Health Reform Law (Kaiser Health News)
The Democrats’ ambitious health care overhaul is facing roadblocks from newly elected state officials who harshly criticized it while campaigning and who are now in a position to make good on their promises.
Elections Generate Turnover Among State Insurance Regulators (Wall Street Journal)
Tuesday's elections spell change among the ranks of those who regulate the state-supervised insurance industry, with potential ramifications for federal health-care reform.
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Releases Draft Guidance on Waivers from Annual Limits Requirements
Last week, HHS issued draft guidance on insurance plan requests for waivers from annual limits. The guidance represents a small but important victory for consumers. Under a regulation issued in June, all plans must have a minimum annual limit of at least $750,000. However, if compliance with the interim final regulations would result in a significant decrease in access to benefits or a significant increase in premiums, the plan could request a waiver. To date, there have been approximately 30 requests for waivers, but many more expected because so many plans have low annual limits (there have been reports about plans with annual limits as low as $2,000.)
ACS CAN has said that in some cases waivers may be necessary and appropriate as the insurance system transitions to one that is more adequate and affordable for patients. Clearly, a health plan with very low limits is of virtually no value to a patient with cancer or any other serious medical condition. However, until the new health exchanges and other reforms are fully in place in 2014, we do not want to see disruptions in the market that could cause people with coverage to lose it, even if the coverage is of very limited value. However, we and other consumer-patient groups have met with HHS staff several times to request that enrollees be informed of the waiver. In the guidance issued last week, HHS agreed. All enrollees will now have to be informed directly that their plan has a waiver, what the waiver is for, and why it was sought. We believe this kind of disclosure is enormously important in educating consumers about the limits of their current plans and what the new law offers in terms of protections. Increasing disclosure to enrollees about specific reforms that directly affect them is a very effective means of increasing consumer awareness and understanding of the ACA.
New Post-Election Kaiser Health Poll Released
A new post-election Kaiser Health Tracking Poll released this week reveals that health care reform ranked fourth on the list of factors influencing voters’ decisions. The economy and jobs were mentioned most often (29%), followed by voters’ party preferences (25%) and opinions of the particular candidates (21%). Health care reform was mentioned by 17 percent of voters.
The overall public mood on what lawmakers should do about the law remains divided, a finding consistent with pre-election polling. Twenty-one percent of Americans support expanding the law, 19 percent support maintaining the law, 25 percent want to repeal provisions of the law, and 24 percent support repealing the law entirely. Among those who voted in this month’s election, 56 percent support repealing the entire law or parts of the law.
However, the poll found that even among repeal supporters, there are several provisions of the law that the majority of Americans approve of, including the ban on denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, tax credits for small businesses, the closing of the Medicare “doughnut hole,” and subsidies to help low and moderate income Americans buy insurance. Click here to view the entire report: http://bit.ly/cvypru
Christopher W. Hansen
President
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN)