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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
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2-17-11 Affordable Care Act Update
February 18, 2011
House of Representatives Debates FY 2011 Continuing Resolution
The House of Representatives this week is debating HR 1, a continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the government through October 1 of this year. More than 500 amendments have been filed since the House started debate on the bill Tuesday morning. Numerous amendments have been filed to defund provisions and programs in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), including an amendment Representative Denny Rehberg (R-MT) has filed that would shut off funding to pay federal workers, official contractors, and grantees to implement the law. Amendments related to the Affordable Care Act will be debated late this evening or tomorrow.
Overall the bill as introduced would make major cuts to federal cancer research, prevention and early detection programs, and could set back the longstanding national effort to conquer cancer. It would cut the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by 21 percent, posing a serious threat to the National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program (NBCCEDP). The bill also would cut the budget at the National Institutes of Health by 5.2 percent. Read the ACS CAN press release.
Update on High-Risk Pools
Last summer, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched a set of new high-risk pools, also known as the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan (PCIP), established by the ACA for people with pre-existing conditions who have been uninsured for six months or more. This week, HHS announced that the total enrollment is a little over 12,000 – substantially higher than it was before lower-premium options were introduced in January, but still below initial expectations. Initially, the concern was that the $5 billion allocated for the pools under the ACA would not be enough to cover all of the people expected to apply, but the low enrollment is now being cited by some critics as evidence that the new pools are not necessary.
Although somewhat disappointing, the seemingly low enrollment is not surprising. This is a new program and it is trying to reach a population that had probably abandoned hope of getting coverage. Even though the premiums are reasonable for many people (rates are based on what a relatively healthy person would pay), it is hard to communicate and inform people who have been without coverage for an extended period of time, and for some people the rates are still unaffordable. HHS and the states are learning from their initial experience and some changes have been made, including lowering premiums, increasing coverage options, and expanding outreach approaches that have been effective. Read the Washington Post article and New York Times editorial.
New HHS Innovator Grants Announced This Week
On Wednesday, HHS awarded approximately $241 million in early innovator funding to Kansas, Maryland, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Wisconsin, and a consortium of New England states. The early innovator grants are for the design and implementation of information technology infrastructure needed to operate the new health insurance exchanges. Ultimately, the health exchanges will be similar to consumer shopping for airline or banking services and offer a choice of health plans that meet certain benefits and cost standards. The grants will help states design systems that will make this model viable. Read the HHS press release and Los Angeles Times article.
New Polls Show Public Disapproval of Efforts to Harm the Affordable Care Act
American voters are divided on how they view congressional Republicans’ efforts to repeal the ACA, according to a new Fox News poll. Almost half of voters – 49 percent – see repeal as an “important effort” and 48 percent described it as a “waste of time”
Another recent poll, administered by CBS News, found that the majority of Americans are not supportive of efforts to defund the law. The survey discovered that 55 percent of American adults disapprove of Republican efforts to defund the ACA, despite the fact that just over half reject the law itself. Meanwhile, the poll showed that many Americans – 44 percent – are still uncertain of how the law will affect the health care system.
Litigation
The ACA provision requiring individuals to purchase health insurance - the so-called "individual mandate" - continues to be the key legal issue in challenges across the country. The constitutionality of this provision was widely debated this week, including at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. The hearing featured Virginia Attorney General Kenneth Cucinnelli, who argued that the provision violates the U.S. Constitution by forcing people to engage in commercial activity. It also featured Duke University Professor Walter Dellinger, who defended the mandate as an integral part of an overall insurance regulatory scheme. Many scholars agree that key protections in the ACA, including the bans on pre-existing conditions and annual caps, are not economically viable without the individual mandate. Read WTOP’s coverage of the hearing.
In related news, a panel of experts at last week's conference of the American Medical Association agreed that keeping the individual mandate was crucial to other reforms. Read the BNA Health Law Reporter article.
As always, thank you for all you do every day to support laws and policies that help cancer patients and their families.
Christopher W. Hansen
President
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN)