Tag: ACA

Trump’s 2024 Triumph: A Wild Card for Seniors’ Health Care Coverage?

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

by Abeer Malik

In an ideal world, everyone has a “safety net” — a reliable layer of support that catches us when life’s challenges become overwhelming. For many Americans, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has been a crucial piece of that safety net, providing access to affordable health care, expanded coverage options, and support for innovative medical care delivery methods that lower health care costs. During Donald Trump’s previous tenure as president, his repeated attempts to repeal and replace the ACA signaled a clear intent to overhaul federal health care insurance programs, even though the efforts ultimately fell short.

With Trump’s 2024 re-election, while broad health care debates are reignited, it is crucial to zero in on what this means specifically for aging Americans.

Read More

Waiting area in a doctor's office

Churntables: A Look at the Record on Medicaid Redetermination Plans

czhang Leave a comment

By Cathy Zhang

The COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE) expires at the end of this week, with Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra expected to renew the PHE once more to extend through mid-July.

When the PHE ultimately expires, this will also trigger the end of the Medicaid continuous enrollment requirement, under which states must provide continuous Medicaid coverage for enrollees through the end of the last month of the PHE in order to receive enhanced federal funding. This policy improves coverage and helps reduce churn, which is associated with poor health outcomes.

After the PHE, states can facilitate smooth transitions for those no longer eligible for Medicaid by taking advantage of the full 12- to 14- month period that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has established for redetermining eligibility.

In August 2021, CMS released guidance giving states up to 12 months following the end of the PHE to redetermine whether Medicaid enrollees were still eligible and renew coverage. Last month, CMS released new guidance specifying that states must initiate redeterminations and renewals within 12 months of the PHE ending, but have up to 14 months to complete them. The agency is encouraging states to spread its renewals over the course of the full 12-month unwinding period, processing no more than 1/9th of their caseloads in a month, in order to reduce the risk of inappropriate terminations.

Read More

WASHINGTON, DC - OCT. 8, 2019: Rally for LGBTQ rights outside Supreme Court as Justices hear oral arguments in three cases dealing with discrimination in the workplace because of sexual orientation.

Affirming Nondiscrimination Rights: HHS Needs to Acknowledge a Private Right of Action for Section 1557 Violations

czhang Leave a comment

By Cathy Zhang

Last week, on the heels of attacks on trans youth and their families in Texas, the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a notice and guidance expressing support for transgender and gender nonconforming youth and highlighting the civil rights and privacy laws surrounding gender affirming care.

OCR all but names the Texas attacks as unlawful under Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, age, and disability by federally funded health programs or activities. It notes that for federally funded entities, restricting medically necessary care on the basis of gender — such as doctors reporting parents of patients to state authorities — “likely violates Section 1557.”

The guidance directs those who have been discriminated against on the basis of gender identity or disability in seeking access to gender-affirming health care to file a complaint through OCR. HHS can go further, however, by formally acknowledging that individuals have a legal right to enforce Section 1557 when they have experienced prohibited health care discrimination.

Read More

Image of a pile of contraceptive pills.

The Contraceptive Coverage Mandate Is Urgently Needed

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Gregory Curfman

Within the coming months, the constitutional right to abortion, which has been in place for nearly 50 years, is likely to be overturned.

In this light, it is more crucial than ever that women have unfettered access to contraception at no charge. Accordingly, the Biden Administration should act now to return the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraceptive coverage mandate to its status originally intended by Congress in 2010.

Read More

rear view of a dump truck loaded on the road laden with scrap metal

It’s Time for Biden to Scrap Trump-era Junk Plans

czhang Leave a comment

By Cathy Zhang

Open enrollment for the health insurance marketplace begins on November 1.

Among the options available to consumers will be short-term, limited-duration insurance (STLDI), also known as junk insurance plans. The Trump administration facilitated the proliferation of these cheap, underprotective plans in an attempt to undermine the marketplace, and the Biden administration has yet to reverse that policy.

As part of the Biden administration’s public effort “to restore and strengthen Americans’ access to quality, affordable health care,” the administration needs to take executive action to protect consumers and eliminate junk plans.

Read More

Illustration of a family and large clipboard with items in a list checked off. All are underneath a large blue umbrella

Churning Point: Lessons from Medicaid Pandemic Policies

czhang Leave a comment

By Cathy Zhang

During the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring widespread health coverage took on a new sense of urgency, leading many states to implement policies to address the longstanding problem of Medicaid churn.

Churn is a persistent problem in the U.S. health care system. Changes in health insurance coverage disrupt care and worsen self-reported health at significant rates, even for individuals who go from one insurer to another with no gap in coverage. Legislation enacted as a stopgap measure during the pandemic may present a path forward for securing more durable Medicaid coverage beyond the public health emergency.

Read More

Close-up Of Stethoscope On Us Currency And American Flag.

America’s Underinsurance Crisis in the Age of COVID-19

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Dessie Otachliska

The COVID-19 pandemic has shone a light on the underinsurance crisis that has long kept millions of Americans on the precipice of financial disaster — just one unexpected illness or injury away from bankruptcy.

A 2019 Gallup poll showed that 25% of Americans reported delaying treatment for serious medical conditions due to cost concerns — the highest proportion since Gallup first began asking the question in 1991. Even during the pandemic, when medical treatment could mean the difference between life and death, studies show that nearly 1 in 7 Americans would avoid seeking medical care if they experienced key COVID-19 symptoms because of fears associated with the cost of treatment.

These statistics are unsurprising, and the concerns they underscore well-founded: the average treatment costs for COVID patients with symptoms serious enough to require inpatient hospital stays range from $42,486 for relatively mild cases to $74,310 for patients with major complications or comorbidities.

In the pandemic context, hesitance to seek medical treatment due to fear of the associated cost has proved tragically fatal. Darius Settles died after being dissuaded from seeking further COVID-19 treatment due to his uninsured status. The Nashville, TN hospital where Settles originally received care had failed to disclose the possibility that his medical costs would be covered by the federal government. And, despite the availability of reimbursement funds, the hospital nonetheless sent his widow a bill for a portion of his treatment costs.

Read More

WASHINGTON, DC - OCT. 8, 2019: Rally for LGBTQ rights outside Supreme Court as Justices hear oral arguments in three cases dealing with discrimination in the workplace because of sexual orientation.

The Many Harms of State Bills Blocking Youth Access to Gender-Affirming Care

Chloe Reichel Leave a comment

By Chloe Reichel

State legislation blocking trans youth from accessing gender-affirming care puts kids at risk, thwarts physician autonomy, and potentially violates a number of federal laws, write Jack L. Turban, Katherine L. Kraschel, and I. Glenn Cohen in a viewpoint published today in JAMA.

So far this year, 15 states have proposed bills that would limit access to gender-affirming care. One of these bills, Arkansas’ HB1570/SB347, already has become law.

This legislative trend should be troubling to all, explained Cohen, Faculty Director of the Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. In an email interview, he highlighted “how exceptionally restrictive these proposed laws are,” adding that they are “out of step with usual medical, ethical, and legal rules regarding discretion of the medical profession and space for parental decision-making.”

Turban, child and adolescent psychiatry fellow at Stanford University School of Medicine also offered further insight as to the medical and legal concerns these bills raise over email.

Read More

U.S. Capitol Building.

Possibilities and Pitfalls of Health Reform Through Budget Reconciliation

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Nicole Huberfeld

The Biden administration entered office promising health reform. But the evenly-split Senate means ten Republican votes are necessary to move major legislation — cooperation that seems unlikely after years of Republican attempts to repeal and obstruct the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

Still, expanding health insurance coverage may be on the menu through budget reconciliation. A budget reconciliation bill progresses with a simple majority vote: special rules limit debate and make filibuster impossible.

The Biden administration has already navigated budget reconciliation to enact speedy health policy measures in response to the pandemic. Signed March 11, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) is a reconciliation bill which, among other things, offers federal money to support states’ and localities’ public health needs; facilitates economic recovery; increases tax subsidies provided through health insurance exchanges to expand affordability; and builds on the ACA and 2020 COVID relief bills by offering Medicaid non-expansion states an enhanced federal match of 5% for each enrollee to encourage expansion and counterbalance costs. The ARPA also addresses determinants of health and health equity, for example by extending the option of maternal Medicaid coverage for a year after the 60-day post-partum period and creating a new child tax credit. Most provisions last no more than two years.

Read More

Grafton, Illinois, USA, June 1, 2019 -Car submerged under flood water in small river town, Grafton, Illinois, as Mississippi River floods roads, businesses and houses. vehicle under water, men in boat

Bail Out Humans

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Christina S. Ho

This past year has sensitized us politically to government’s affirmative obligations, especially the duty to backstop health catastrophes in order to dampen the risks that ordinary people must bear. 

Our government bails out large risks in so many other arenas. Yet we too often fail to backstop the most human risk of all — our vulnerability to suffering and death. 

Throngs of scholars have described our deep tradition of government-sponsored risk mitigation to nurture favored private activities and expectations, and relieve those favored actors from catastrophes beyond what they could be expected to plan for. I have characterized this distinctive political role figuratively as one of “government as reinsurer.”

The federal government provides standard reinsurance for private crop insurers, virtually full risk-assumption for private flood insurance, guarantees for employer pension benefits, robust backstops for bank liquidity risks, FHA mortgage insurance and a federal secondary market to absorb the risks of housing finance.

In these arenas and more, statistically correlated or high-magnitude catastrophic losses are shed onto the state in order to smooth out and shore up the underlying private risk market. We have yet to commit similarly in the health care domain. 

Read More