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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
11-17-11 Affordable Care Act Update
November 18, 2011
Note: There will be no update next week due to Thanksgiving.
Litigation
The Supreme Court announced on Monday that it will hear arguments in lawsuits challenging the Affordable Care Act. The announcement signals that the nation could receive the clarity so urgently
needed around whether the law, and the critical patient protections it includes, can be sustained in their current form.
The central issue is whether Congress exceeded its constitutional authority by requiring most Americans to purchase health insurance coverage - the so-called "individual mandate." The requirement is what makes key provisions that ACS CAN fought to include in the law sustainable, such as:
- Denying coverage to anyone with a pre-existing condition;
- Terminating coverage when a patient's care exceeds arbitrary dollar limits; or
- Raising premiums to unaffordable levels in response to a diagnosis.
ACS CAN fought to include these key provisions in the law to expand access to health care for people with cancer and their families. That support was based on the Society's peer-reviewed studies showing that the uninsured are more likely than people with private insurance to be diagnosed with cancer at its later stages, and are less likely to survive the disease. But these provisions are at risk from legal challenges to the constitutionality of the individual responsibility requirement. In response to those challenges, the Society and ACS CAN filed a friend-of-the-court brief at the federal appellate level in support of sustaining provisions that are critical for people with cancer and their families. The brief was filed jointly with the American Diabetes Association and the American Heart Association. The organizations plan to file a similar brief with the Supreme Court. Read the joint press release and ACS CAN's Affordable Care Act litigation primer.
While the constitutionality of the individual mandate is the main issue, the court will also consider other important questions: (1) Whether the law's other provisions can continue to be implemented even if
the individual mandate is ruled unconstitutional; (2) Whether the law's expansion of Medicaid is constitutional; and, (3) whether challenges can even be brought at this time since the mandate has not yet taken effect.
State Update
The Department of Health and Human Services "listening tour" on the Essential Benefits package continued this week with stops in Atlanta, Denver, Kansas City, New York City, and Seattle. Society Division and ACS CAN had staff and/or volunteers at all five events speaking to issues that impact the multiple facets of cancer. The tour's last stop takes place next week in San Francisco.
Also this week, ACS CAN kicked off the next phase of staff training sessions addressing implementation of the Affordable Care Act in the states and the many issues involved in the creation and effective operation of insurance exchanges. The main focus of the two-day training was on expanding on the overarching principles of ACS CAN's "threshold questions" to evaluate state exchange proposals and creating comprehensive campaigns to influence how exchanges can best serve cancer patients.
New Poll Finds Increase in Support for Individual Mandate
More than half of Americans (52 percent) have favorable views of the of the individual insurance mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act, according to a CNN/ORC International poll. This is up from 44 percent in June. The insurance mandate gained the most support among low-income and older Americans. The poll was released the same day as the Supreme Court's announcement to review the Affordable Care Act next year.
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