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Action Needed for Market Stability, Access to Health Coverage

July 18, 2018
11:24 am

There is a consensus in this country that people who are struggling with illnesses and have a greater need for healthcare services should not be prevented from acquiring health insurance.  Recent actions at the federal level, though, need to be addressed in order for that ideal to be met.

Risk adjustment payments provide financial stability to insurance providers that provide coverage to relatively high numbers of sicker, higher-cost consumers.  Without those payments, premiums would become unaffordable for millions of Americans who buy their coverage through small businesses or on their own in the individual insurance market.

And that brings us to the current dilemma.

A federal district court judge ruled in February that the Department of Health and Human Service’s methodology for calculating risk adjustment payments was flawed and impermissible.  Subsequently, on July 7, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that payments under the risk adjustment program, including amounts already owed for the 2017 benefit year, would be suspended.

This is an issue that carries extraordinary ramifications.  It will create more market instability – at a time in which we need just the opposite – and the potential for reduced coverage options for those who have the greatest need for healthcare access.  Further, it could result in increased costs to taxpayers if the federal government has to increase premium subsidies.

An analysis by Change Healthcare, a major technology and analytics firm, found that the individual health insurance market attracts an extremely wide range of enrollees in terms of healthcare utilization.  In fact, according to Change, the health plans attracting the sickest patients have health costs at least 450 percent higher than the plans with the healthiest clientele.  Thus, the need for risk adjustment payments.

CMS has asked the district court judge to reconsider his ruling.  We hope he will.  Americans with serious healthcare needs should have affordable coverage.

Walden Discussed Repeal and Replace Strategies at HLC Meeting

January 26, 2017
3:06 pm

On January 24 at a dinner hosted by the Healthcare Leadership Council for its members, U.S. Representative Greg Walden (R-OR), the new chairman of the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee, spoke of his panel’s goals for the upcoming healthcare overhaul.  CQ Roll Call published the following article based upon his prepared remarks.


CQ: Walden Outlines Obamacare Strategy to Health Care Executives By Joe Williams, CQ Roll Call

Energy and Commerce Chairman Greg Walden was poised Tuesday night to outline to health care industry executives his panel’s strategy for repealing and replacing the 2010 health care law, including insights on his plans to overhaul Medicaid.

The Oregon Republican planned to use his closed-door meeting with the Healthcare Leadership Council to discuss several measures his panel would consider in the coming weeks, according to prepared remarks obtained by CQ Roll Call.

A pair of hearings to be scheduled for late next week will center on stabilizing the health insurance marketplaces and on Medicaid. Walden is working with Senate Finance Chairman Orrin G. Hatch of Utah on changes to Medicaid, which provides health insurance to more than 73 million Americans.

Walden planned to confirm during his speech Tuesday night that Republicans will model their legislation largely on a repeal bill President Barack Obama vetoed last year.

“We will use our 2015 reconciliation bill as a starting point in order to repeal major portions of Obamacare, such as the individual and employer mandates, and address the Obamacare Medicaid expansion and the failing exchanges,” Walden’s prepared remarks say. They also say a “stability period” would be included in the legislation.

Walden also is expected to say that Republicans will “maintain protections for those with pre-existing conditions” and permit children to stay on their parents’ insurance plan until age 26, two provisions in the current law (PL 111-148, PL 111-152) that President Donald Trump has voiced support for keeping in a replacement plan.

In his prepared remarks, Walden calls on the Healthcare Leadership Council to engage publicly in the health care debate. The group includes executives from hospitals, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufactures and other industries.

“We can’t do this alone. But by working together . . . we can reach our mutual goal of helping people live healthier lives and giving every American a new opportunity to get affordable health care coverage,” Walden will say, according to the prepared remarks.

Changes to Medicaid

Walden’s remarks don’t detail how the GOP would address the 2010 law’s Medicaid expansion, but he confirmed to CQ Roll Call earlier in the day he has had several meetings with Hatch to discuss their legislation on changes to the program.

Earlier this month, Walden organized a meeting between Republican lawmakers on his panel and GOP governors to discuss potential changes to Medicaid. He also attended a separate but similar meeting organized by Senate Finance.

A top aide to Trump said earlier this week the president would propose turning Medicaid into a block grant system. Some GOP governors at the meetings last week, however, suggested a per capita approach that would explicitly require the federal government to incorporate enrollment changes when determining reimbursement rates.

J. Mario Molina, president of Molina Healthcare, told CQ Roll Call both Republican and Democratic governors are likely to push for a per capita approach because it would account for potential increases in each state’s Medicaid population.

“This is going to be a debate between the states and the federal government as to how best to continue this entitlement program while trying to rein in costs,” he said in a recent interview.

Others Republican governors, including Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio, proposed lowering the Medicaid coverage threshold to 100 percent of the poverty level and allowing people with income above that amount to get exchange coverage. The law’s expansion provides Medicaid coverage for individuals up to 138 percent of the poverty level.

 

Let the Public Option Rest in Peace

August 24, 2016
12:40 pm

Most will remember that one of the most spirited debates during congressional consideration of the Affordable Care Act, back in the early days of the Obama administration, concerned the proposed creation of a government-run health insurance plan that would compete alongside private plans in the new insurance exchanges.  Lawmakers rightly rejected the idea, arguing that it would create a degree of federal involvement in health insurance far exceeding the comfort level of moderates and conservatives, create an uneven and potentially destabilizing playing field in the health coverage marketplace, and cause a displacement of employer-based insurance as a result of federally-set, artificially-low premiums and deductibles.

Even HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said, at the time, that the public option was not “an essential element for reform.”

As we’re witnessing the health insurance exchanges facing some well-publicized difficulties today, we’re hearing more calls from candidates and interest groups to bring back the public option.

We need to give those calls a deaf ear.

No doubt, the next Congress and administration will need to address the state of the Obamacare exchanges, making the right policy decisions to enable health plans to compete without absorbing unsustainable losses.  Forcing those plans to compete with a taxpayer-subsidized insurance alternative will only bring less stability, not more.

And just as important to the long-term sustainability of our healthcare system and accessibility to care for a growing number of patients, the public option is detrimental to physicians and hospitals.  A government-run plan that reimburses for services at Medicare rates will “disrupt the fragile financial system that sustains hospitals today.”

The quotation in the previous paragraph came from a letter jointly written this summer by the American Hospital Association and the Federation of American Hospitals.  Their letter points out that Medicare is paying less than the actual cost of care being delivered to patients.  They note, “adding millions more enrollees whose health care would be reimbursed at Medicare rates would likely threaten access to needed health care services, particularly for those in vulnerable communities.”

They added, “We continue to believe the framework of health care exchanges providing subsidized coverage, combined with expansion of the Medicaid program, was the best means of achieving universal coverage.  The addition of a public option at this time would only introduce greater uncertainty to a health care system that is experiencing rapid transformation.”

We agree.  Let’s strengthen the health insurance exchanges and leave the public option as an interesting chapter in the history of healthcare policy debates.

The Employment Aspect of the Medicaid Debate

January 20, 2015
1:00 pm

There has been plenty of discussion about the health coverage gap between the states that have expanded Medicaid eligibility and the 23 states that have, thus far, declined to do so. As a Kaiser Family Foundation study last December pointed out, about four million Americans living in states that have not altered their Medicaid thresholds have incomes that are above Medicaid eligibility but below the lower limit for tax credits to use for purchasing insurance in the health exchanges.

What has received less attention is the impact of the Medicaid debate on job creation. An article this week in the Dayton Daily News noted that about 7,000 new positions have been created in hospitals, physicians’ offices and other healthcare facilities in the first full year of Medicaid expansion in Ohio, an increase over the previous year’s job growth in the healthcare sector.

This is consistent with a Missouri study released last year which found that health sector job creation growth rates were significantly higher (2.1 percent versus 0.7 percent) in states that had expanded Medicaid eligibility versus those that haven’t.

The Healthcare Leadership Council has long maintained that expanding Medicaid is not the ideal tool, given its relatively low reimbursement rates and the number of physicians that are not accepting new Medicaid patients, for reducing the uninsured population. Making more individuals eligible for Medicaid, under the parameters of the Affordable Care Act, is preferable, though, to asking healthcare providers to bear larger uncompensated care burdens at a time when they are already absorbing ACA payment cuts.

We continue to urge the Obama Administration to be flexible toward the innovative steps a number of states are taking to expand coverage to more low-income citizens.

Aetna CEO: New Math for Medicare

October 22, 2014
5:02 pm

(We have made the point often in this space that, even with the private sector’s successes in containing healthcare costs and reducing Medicare per-capita spending to historic lows, the sheer magnitude of baby boomers reaching 65 and reaching Medicare eligibility necessitates significant changes to the program.  Moving away from a fee-for-service model that incentivizes volume rather than value is essential.  As Mark Bertolini, CEO of Aetna (a Healthcare Leadership Council member) points out in this Forbes op-ed column, innovative approaches to Medicare payment and healthcare delivery can achieve better patient health and improved system sustainability.)

By Mark T. Bertolini

The Medicare Part A trust fund will be exhausted by 2030. As 11,000 baby boomers become eligible for Medicare daily, Medicare spending is projected to exceed $1 trillion in 2020. We can’t change the numbers that define our population but, we can apply new math to them.

Focus first on helping the chronically ill

The sickest 5 percent of fee-for-service Medicare patients with chronic conditions drive more than 40 percent of the total cost of health care in the program. We should use the lessons learned in Medicare Advantage and other proven innovations. Encourage Medicare Part A and B enrollees with multiple chronic conditions to participate in new integrated care programs with top-notch physicians to ensure high-quality service. Pay managed care organizations rates that guarantee savings for taxpayers out of the gate.

Use the successes and learnings of this approach to phase out the Medicare fee-for-service payment model

The fee-for-service model has doctors getting paid by the number of procedures they do or tests they run, rather than on how well their patients do. We need to move to a system that pays for quality over quantity.

These two changes alone will mean lower cost coupled with better integrated, quality care for the members of our families that need that care the most.

While the Congressional Budget Office recently reported that estimated costs of Medicare and Medicaid have dropped, our country’s coffers are still being drained by a too-costly health care system. This was reconfirmed in July, when the Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds projected that Medicare costs will grow from their current level of 3.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) to at least 5.3 percent of the GDP in 2035.

Consider this: As baby boomers become Medicare eligible, the number of beneficiaries will grow from 50.7 million in 2012 to 81 million in 2030—a 60 percent increase in less than 20 years. Add to this that the tax base is shrinking: Baby boomers are retiring, leaving the country with a much smaller workforce paying a much higher Medicare tax burden. With average life expectancy projected to reach 81.5 years by 2030, on average those seniors will use Medicare benefits for three times as long as when Medicare was enacted in 1965. Chronic conditions among Medicare beneficiaries also are on the rise, making them a sicker and more expensive population than existed in 1965.

The current fee-for-service payment model unintentionally incentivizes the wrong kinds of behaviors—spending less time with patients, or having more tests and procedures. There is little reward for finding more efficient ways to make people better or for keeping them healthy in the first place.

Bringing innovative collaboration to traditional Medicare

Many programs that have been so effective for caring for Medicare Advantage’s sickest beneficiaries, including enhanced home-based care, care coordination and medication review, are not always covered under traditional Medicare. Our experience in Medicare Advantage shows the promise of these models. For several years, we have worked with health care providers to establish reimbursement models based on risk-sharing that encourages higher-quality performance. Aetna Aetna’s Medicare Advantage Provider Collaboration program, and its work to create accountable care organizations (ACOs), are examples of cooperative arrangements that are improving care quality and health outcomes while also reducing costs. In many instances, these programs have resulted in fewer inpatient hospital days, fewer hospital admissions and fewer readmissions for patients, which can reduce health care costs by as much as 30 percent.

Bringing innovative provider collaborations and managed care approaches to traditional Medicare is a winning proposition for everyone. Patients could get a full team of experts providing customized and focused attention, and be rewarded with incentives for adhering to treatment. Doctors could get greater support, information and resources to help their patients get and stay healthy. Managed care companies could serve a broader Medicare population, as long as they meet the required quality and outcomes results. Taxpayers could get a lower-cost, better-quality healthcare system.

In the past, we have shied away from making significant changes to Medicare, since the issues seemed to be so far down the road. That is no longer the case. Our Medicare spending has a tremendous impact on our economy now, and that will only increase over the next decade. Our population is aging too quickly and our nation’s Medicare costs are growing too rapidly for us to be timid. We need to take dramatic action now, and revolutionize how we approach the problem. The numbers can work if we are ready to adopt a new model. We can achieve a result that includes both healthier seniors and a lower tax burden.