Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Obama, Staples Quibble Over Health Law Employment Issue
Reuters: Obama Slams Staples, Big Companies On Healthcare: 'Shame On Them'-BuzzFeed
U.S. President Barack Obama singled out office supply company Staples Inc as undercutting his healthcare reform law and said large corporations should not use the health insurance issue as an excuse for cutting wages, the news website BuzzFeed reported. "It's one thing when you've got a mom-and-pop store who can't afford to provide paid sick leave or health insurance or minimum wage to workers ... but when I hear large corporations that make billions of dollars in profits trying to blame our interest in providing health insurance as an excuse for cutting back workers’ wages, shame on them,” Obama said in an interview with BuzzFeed. (2/11)
Marketwatch: Staples Slams Obama’s ‘Attack’ On Its Health-Care Policy
In a rare instance of corporate criticism of a president, Staples Inc. on Wednesday said that President Barack Obama “appears not to have all the facts” when he criticized the company’s policy of limiting worker hours. ... In a statement Wednesday, Staples denied that its part-time employee policy was the result of the Affordable Care Act. “The initial [BuzzFeed] story was misleading as our policy regarding hours for part-time employees is more than a decade old,” said Kirk Saville, a Staples spokesman. “It’s unfortunate that the president is attacking a company that provides more than 85,000 jobs and is a major taxpayer,” he added. (Robb, 2/11)
In other news about the health law implementation --
The Wall Street Journal: Thousands To Lose Health Insurance Over Residency Questions
The Obama administration is cutting off health-insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act for 200,000 people who haven’t proved they are legally residing in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials on Wednesday said health plans would terminate Feb. 28 for people who had signed up for coverage in 2014 and whose plans had been automatically renewed for 2015, after officials concluded those people hadn’t supplied enough information to verify their immigration or citizenship status. (Radnofsky, 2/11)
Politico Pro: ACA Health Plans Imposing High Cost Sharing On Drugs
A growing number of Obamacare plans are imposing the highest cost sharing on patients for entire classes of drugs, even including some generics, according to a new Avalere study. Researchers looked at 20 classes of drugs and found that some plans placed all of the drugs in five classes on the costliest “specialty tier” of their formulary. Two of those classes — protease inhibitors and multiple sclerosis agents — include generic options, yet 29 percent and 51 percent of silver plans, respectively, put them on their top tier in 2015. That’s up from 16 percent and 42 percent of plans in 2014. (Norman, 2/11)
Politico Pro: Analysis Pegs Value Of Obamacare Cost-Sharing Subsidies
A new analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows just how much Obamacare’s cost-sharing subsidies are worth to the people who would lose them if the Supreme Court blocks that assistance in states with federal-run exchanges. (Norman, 2/11)
