Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
CMS Letting Plans Adjust Premiums After News That Trump Is Cutting Off Insurer Subsidies
CQ: Administration Allows Plans To Change Health Exchange Rates
The Trump administration is allowing some insurance companies to change health exchange premiums following the president’s decision to end crucial consumer cost-sharing subsidies. President Donald Trump announced Friday he would end the subsidies, which aid families up to 250 percent of the federal poverty level with copays and deductibles. The subsidies had been at the center of a legal fight between House Republicans and the Obama administration that Trump inherited. (Clason, 10/16)
Bloomberg: The Health Plans Trump Backs Have A Long History Of Disputes
The short-term medical plans promoted in President Donald Trump’s new executive order on health care have a long history of customer disputes over pre-existing conditions and denied claims -- just the sort of scenarios that were being weeded out by Obamacare. The Affordable Care Act pushes Americans to buy comprehensive long-term coverage; the Obama administration limited short-term plans to three months and prevented them from being extended. The temporary plans are geared toward people who are between jobs or considering retirement. (Larson and Tracer, 10/16)
And in news from the states —
The Philadelphia Inquirer/Philly.com: Pa. Approves Steep 2018 ACA Exchange Percentage Increases, Hopes To Minimize Impact
President Trump’s decision to end payments to insurers that help make health coverage affordable for millions of lower-income Americans under the Affordable Care Act blew up what would have been a year of relatively low rate increases in Pennsylvania. The Pennsylvania Department of Insurance on Monday announced that it had approved average rate increases of 30.6 percent for individual plans to be sold next year both on and off the ACA health insurance exchange. (Brubaker, 10/16)
The Hill: Pennsylvania ObamaCare To See Premiums Spike Amid Trump Pay Cuts
Insurance premiums for plans sold on Pennsylvania’s ObamaCare exchange will increase by an average of 30.6 percent for 2018, primarily because of President Trump’s decision to stop paying key subsidies, the state’s insurance department said. If Trump had decided to continue making the cost-sharing reduction payments, projections showed a much more modest premium increase of 7.6 percent. (Weixel, 10/16)
The Baltimore Sun: Health Exchange Works To Counter Confusion Over Obamacare
Major last-minute changes at the federal level to the Affordable Care Act and additional rate increases at the state level threaten to undermine enrollment in health insurance this year, but Maryland health exchange officials are sticking to a goal of signing up at least as many people as last year. The exchange, where people who do not get insurance through work can buy coverage, enrolled more than 140,000 people in private plans and about 280,000 in the expanded Medicaid program during the last year’s enrollment period for 2017 insurance coverage. (Cohn, 10/16)
Concord (N.H.) Monitor: Sununu Asks Congress To Act On Health Care
Four days after President Donald Trump ended a key Affordable Care Act subsidy, pitching the individual market into further chaos, Republican Gov. Chris Sununu pressed Congress to authorize the payments themselves. In a joint letter sent to Congressional leaders Tuesday, Sununu and New Hampshire Insurance Commissioner Roger Sevigny asked U.S. House and Senate leaders to restore the funding, known as cost-sharing reduction payments, or CSRs, which reimburse insurers for discounts they are legally required give certain low-income individuals. (DeWitt, 10/17)
New Hampshire Union Leader: NH Officials Call On Congress To Pass Bipartisan Health Care Measure
Gov. Chris Sununu and Insurance Commissioner Roger Sevigny on Monday waded into the national health care debate in a letter to leaders in Congress, urging them to restore cost-sharing reduction payments and pass “the Lower Premiums Through Reinsurance Act of 2017,” a bipartisan measure sponsored by Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Senator Bill Nelson, D-Fla. The reinsurance program proposed in the legislation would help offset the loss of cost-sharing reduction payments by the federal government, announced last week by President Trump. (10/16)
Minnesota Public Radio: Gov. Dayton Signs Reinsurance Waiver, Vows To Fight Cuts To MinnesotaCare
Gov. Mark Dayton signed off on a federal waiver Monday allowing for Minnesota's new health care reinsurance program. ...Because of the program, non-group, individual-market health insurance rates for next year will be about 20 percent lower than they otherwise would have been, insurers say. (Zdechlik, 10/16)
The CT Mirror: Attacked By Trump, Insurers Tout Economic Impact In CT, Other States
Under attack from President Donald Trump, the nation’s insurers hit back Monday with a report aimed at showing the industry’s impact on the U.S. economy and the economies of every state, including Connecticut where it said health insurers are a $1.15 billion business. The study, released by America’s Health Insurance Plans, or AHIP, said the health insurance industry employs 9,544 people in Connecticut and their average annual salary is $120,366, much higher than in all other states. (Radelat, 10/16)
