Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Despite Payment Cuts, Medicare Advantage Plan Enrollments Rise More Than 50 Percent
Five years into Medicare spending cuts that were supposed to devastate private Medicare options for older Americans, enrollment in private insurance plans through Medicare has shot up by more than 50 percent, confounding experts and partisans alike and providing possible lessons for the Affordable Care Act鈥檚 insurance exchanges. When Congress passed President Obama鈥檚 signature health law nearly six years ago, it helped offset the cost by cutting payments to Medicare Advantage plans, offered by private insurers operating under contract with the government. Insurers and Republicans said the cuts 鈥 about $150 billion over 10 years 鈥 would 鈥済ut鈥 the program, a major theme in the 2010 and 2012 elections. The Congressional Budget Office predicted that enrollment would fall about 30 percent. (Pear, 2/12)
The number of people who signed up for health insurance for 2016 on the state and federal exchanges was up to 40% lower than earlier government and private estimates, which some say is evidence that the plans are too expensive and that people would rather pay a penalty than buy them. Just 12.7 million signed up for plans by the end of open enrollment Jan. 31 and about 1 million people are expected to drop their plans 鈥 or be dropped when they don't pay their premiums. (O'Donnell, 2/15)
As the 2015 tax filing season gets underway, tax preparers said a delay in new health law tax forms is causing confusion for some consumers, while others want details about exemptions from increasingly stiff penalties for not having insurance. ... This is the first year that employers, insurers and government programs are required to send consumers tax forms that report whether they offered or provided health insurance that was considered affordable and adequate under the law. (Andrews, 2/16)
In news on a smaller provision of the health law聽鈥
The House on Friday easily passed, 266-144, a bill that would weaken menu-labeling requirements set out in the 2010 health care overhaul. The legislation (HR 2017) takes aim at a mandate that menus of establishments with 20 or more locations must list calorie counts of the food that they serve. The Food and Drug Administration, which is tasked with enforcing the rule, has extended the deadline to be in compliance from the end of 2015 until the end of this year. (Siddons, 2/12)
And developments from Texas, Kansas and Wisconsin聽鈥
The number of uninsured children in Texas fell by almost 100,000 during the first year of full implementation of the Affordable Care Act, signalling a potential trend across all age groups, a new study by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation finds. (Dean, 2/15)
A recent national report credits the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, for helping to reduce racial and ethnic inequalities in health insurance coverage. But Kansas has not made as much progress as other states. Before the Affordable Care Act, blacks, Hispanics, American Indians and Asian-Americans were much more likely than whites to be uninsured. But an analysis by the nonprofit Center for Global Policy Solutions shows that gap has narrowed because of the health reform law. (Thompson, 2/15)
Milwaukee won the White House's Healthy Communities Challenge, a contest among 20 cities to enroll people in health plans sold on the marketplaces set up through the Affordable Care Act, the White House announced Friday. President Barack Obama promised to visit the city that won the challenge. (Stephenson, 2/12)
