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
3-31-11 Affordable Care Act Update
April 1, 2011
Capitol Hill Update
GAO Report on Individual Mandate Released
Last Friday, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) made public a report Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) requested regarding potential alternatives to the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) individual mandate provision, which requires most Americans to purchase health insurance beginning in 2014. The report studied mechanisms other than the individual mandate, but the results were inconclusive, with little evidence showing that any of them would lead to equivalent, economically sustainable insurance coverage for the 32 million additional Americans who will be covered once the ACA is fully in effect.
ACS CAN believes that the critical patient protections in the ACA, including those that end discrimination in the insurance market against people with cancer, would not be economically viable without the law's individual responsibility provision. Read ACS CAN's press release .
Defunding Programs in Affordable Care Act
The House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee passed legislation today to eliminate mandatory funding for several programs created in the ACA, including funding for the Prevention and Public Health Fund and funds for state-based exchange grants. The legislation will likely pass out of the full Energy and Commerce Committee next week, and subsequently debated on the House floor. At this time it is unclear if the Senate will act on the legislation.
ACS CAN opposes the legislation, and fully supports the prevention fund created in the ACA, as well as the exchange grants. The Prevention and Public Health Fund provides critical funding to local communities across the US to address issues including obesity and tobacco use. The state-based exchange grants are available to help states plan for the new state health exchanges that will serve as a marketplace for consumers to obtain information and purchase health insurance.
National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) Quarterly Meeting
Over the past weekend, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) held their quarterly meeting in Austin, Texas, and once again took up the medical loss ratio (MLR) issue. Last October, with the strong support of consumer groups, the NAIC made a unanimous recommendation to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for a regulation that, consistent with the ACA, included agents and broker fees as an administrative expense when calculating the MLR. HHS subsequently adopted with little substantive change.
However, as the result of continued and extensive pressure from agents and brokers, the NAIC at its Austin meeting was prepared to consider a recommendation to Congress to enact a bill that would amend the ACA to take agent and broker fees out of the MLR. Read an article from Politico about the proposed legislation.
Thanks to extensive lobbying by ACS CAN and other consumer groups in the states and at the NAIC meeting, the commissioners decided to seek more information before voting on whether to support or oppose the change to the ACA. With the majority of states still in legislative session, ACS CAN and Society Divisions in 38 states sent or hand delivered letters directly to their respective Insurance Commissioner. Consumer groups have pointed out that excluding the broker and agent fees could increase insurance premiums, making the MLR essentially meaningless, and denying consumers $1.4 billion in rebates they would likely otherwise receive under the ACA.
Once again, the patient and consumer voice seems to have been heard and while there are six more weeks to go before the issue is finally settled, there is cause for optimism that patients and consumers will carry the day thanks in great part to the direct outreach work in the states. ACS CAN will closely monitor NAIC activities in the coming weeks, and continue to reach out to Division advocacy staff and volunteers to deliver the message to their insurance commissioner that changing the MLR is not in the best interest of consumers and meaningful insurance reform.
Update on Medicaid
As part of a strategy to contain cost, many Republican Governors have proposed converting Medicaid from a federal entitlement that offers states matching funds to a fixed federal block grant program based on projected health costs and program need. However, it is very unlikely that such a move can produce the intended cost savings. ACS CAN believes block grants will costs to states and decrease health coverage for patients in Medicaid. ACS CAN continues to monitor the issue closely. The attached Medicaid Block Grant fact sheet further details the issue and its impact on cancer patients.
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)