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
News
3-28-13 Affordable Care Act Update
March 28, 2013
State Update
A recent study by The Commonwealth Fund found that only 11 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation or regulations needed to implement insurance market reforms in the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The study explains in detail why states need to pass conforming legislation, and how a failure to do so may impact a state's ability to enforce the new consumer-friendly market reforms in the ACA. The report concludes that without legislation, many states will have difficulty enforcing several of the patient protections in the law, including the ban on insurance companies denying coverage because someone is sick or has a pre-existing condition, the limit on what consumers must pay in out-of-pocket costs, and the guarantee of essential benefits needed to fight a disease such as cancer..
Media and Polling
Americans Continue to Say They Have Too Little Information About the ACA
Three years after passage of the ACA, 57 percent of Americans say they still do not have enough information to understand how it will affect them, according to the latest Kaiser Health Tracking Poll. This percentage rises to two-thirds of key groups the law was designed to help: the uninsured (67%) and those with incomes below $40,000 (68%).
The poll found that the public's awareness of key elements of the law has declined since the ACA's passage. In three years, the percentage of the public aware of the provision that would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions has fallen by 11 percent. Similarly, 13 percent fewer people are aware of the law's subsidies to help lower income Americans purchase coverage. The survey also finds that the public is not tuned in to decisions states are making about accepting federal funds to cover more people through Medicaid and establishing health insurance exchanges, or marketplaces. In general, the country remains fairly divided on the ACA, with 40 percent holding an unfavorable view of the law and 37 percent holding a favorable one.
ACS CAN strives to educate the American people of how the ACA will affect them as provisions are enacted and the law comes into full effect in 2014.
Study: States that don't expand Medicaid may increase employer health costs
A recent Jackson Hewitt study concluded that state governors who say that accepting federal funds to cover more people through Medicaid is bad for business may in fact be hurting business owners. According to the analysis, employers in the 22 states that have either declared they won't accept the funds or are leaning toward not accepting the funds would be burdened with between $872 million and $1.3 billion in annual "shared responsibility" payments owed by companies of 50 employees or more whose workers need federal premium assistance to purchase health insurance through the exchanges. In Texas alone, in the absence of a Medicaid expansion, employers would be responsible for between $299 million to $448 million in annual payments under this provision. These figures could exceed $1 billion among states that are currently undecided about expanding Medicaid in line with the ACA.
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 Cance