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While roughly 83% of adults in the United States will visit a health care provider in the next year, an estimated
News
12-8-11 Affordable Care Act Update
December 15, 2011
Federal Update
Medical Loss Ratio
The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to spend at least 80 percent of their premium revenue on health care claims and quality improvement costs. Beginning this year, insurers who miss the target are required to rebate the difference to policy holders. Late last week the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the final rule governing medical loss ratio (MLR) calculations, the percentage insurers spend on benefits versus administrative costs. Overall the rule is favorable to consumers and maintains the inclusion of insurance broker and agent fees in the calculation as administrative expenses. ACS CAN strongly supports this aspect of the rule, believing that classifying fees and commissions as administrative expenses more accurately reflects the proportion of spending by insurers on health care.
HHS Announces $14 million for School-Based Health Centers
HHS awarded more than $14 million to 45 school-based health centers across the country this week. The funding was authorized by the Affordable Care Act, and will allow school-based health centers across the country to expand their capacity and modernize their facilities. The funding will allow the centers to treat nearly 53,000 additional children in 29 states. Click here to read more or see a list of states that received grants:
Public Health and Prevention Fund
Congress continues to turn toward the Public Health and Prevention Fund that was created under the Affordable Care Act to pay for a range of non-prevention budget items. The intent of the fund was to finally make prevention a national priority, after years of spending a mere four cents of every dollar trying to keep people well. If Congress succeeds in channeling this critical funding elsewhere, we risk reverting to a health care system that only focuses on treating people once they get sick.
ACS CAN is working to defend the fund and urging Congress to use the money to improve public health. To that end, ACS CAN will be joining dozens of other public health groups for a lobby day next Thursday, December 15. Representatives from the groups will attend meetings on Capitol Hill to encourage members of Congress to protect the prevention funding and use it as it is intended, to make an historic investment in the health of this country.
Affordable Care Act Training
ACS CAN convened the second of three training opportunities for Division advocacy staff December 6-8 in Indianapolis. Participating Divisions included Midwest, Mid South, Illinois, Great Lakes, High Plains, East Central, and New England. Highlights included new policy resources and instruction on using them, panelists discussing the law's new regulations, and workshops on developing implementation campaigns. ACS CAN will host the third and final staff training opportunity in Denver on January 10-11, at which point all Divisions will have been provided such an opportunity to participate in a training.
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 of ACS CAN
ACS Cancer Action Network | American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, Inc.