Overnight Health Care: Mandate repeal sparks fears of premium hikes | HHS nominee to get Senate hearing this month | Trump officials eye work requirements for Medicaid recipients
The move by Senate Republicans to repeal ObamaCare’s individual mandate could plunge insurance markets into uncertainty, leading to premium hikes or insurers dropping out of the market, experts say.
“Repeal of the individual mandate could certainly be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” said Larry Levitt, a health policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
“There could be a point where insurers just decide it’s not worth the risk” to participate in ObamaCare, Levitt added. “Repeal of the individual mandate seems like it could be that point.”
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Several experts said they doubt that ObamaCare markets would collapse without a mandate. The subsidies provided under the health-care law serve as a buffer, shielding many enrollees from the cost of premium hikes.
“It is not catastrophic,” David Anderson, a health policy researcher at Duke University, said of losing the mandate. Still, he said premiums would rise and some insurers would likely drop out, limiting people’s choices.
HHS nominee Azar to get Senate hearing Nov. 29
The Senate Health Committee will hold a hearing Nov. 29 on the nomination of Alex Azar by President Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
On Monday, Trump tapped Azar to take over the post Tom Price vacated, after details were revealed about how he took repeated trips on government and private jets costing more than $1 million to taxpayers.
It’s likely Democrats will rigorously question Azar on his time as a pharmaceutical executive and on his plans for ObamaCare — a law he’s criticized, but that HHS is charged with implementing as congressional Republicans failed to repeal it earlier this year.
Azar spent nearly a decade at the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Co. and, most recently, serving as Lilly USA’s president — a post he left in January.
Trump officials eye work requirements for Medicaid recipients
The Trump administration plans to do something no other administration has done before — allow states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients.
In the coming months, the Trump administration could approve waivers allowing eight states to implement the work requirements: Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, New Hampshire, Utah and Wisconsin. All but three of the states accepted ObamaCare’s expansion of Medicaid to cover more low-income adults.
The Obama administration rejected similar waiver requests, but “those days are over,” according to Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
Verma has said that arguments against the work requirements are “a tragic example of the soft bigotry of low expectations consistently espoused by the prior administration.”
But the Trump administration’s move is almost certain to face litigation, with opponents arguing the requirements would undermine Medicaid’s mission of providing health care to low-income people.
Family leave tax credit added to latest GOP tax bill
Republicans have added a tax credit to a modified version of the Senate tax bill, which aims to incentivize businesses to offer paid family and medical leave.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) included in his “modified mark” a proposal from Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) to give businesses offering full-time employees at least two weeks of paid family and medical leave each year a general business credit equal to 12.5 percent of the amount of wages they pay an employee if the employee is getting at least 50 percent of their normal wages.
The tax credit increases by 0.25 percent for every percentage point the employer pays beyond the 50 percent wage replacement. The tax credit, however, maxes out at 25 percent.
More on the tax bill… Tax cuts in Senate bill would evaporate in a decade: JCT
Tax cuts for individuals in the Senate’s latest tax plan would disappear by 2027, according to an analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), with some even seeing a tax increase.
While taxpayers would see their tax bills drop by 7.4 percent on average in 2019 under the bill, by 2027, their taxes would rise by an average of 0.2 percent.
The poor would be hardest hit, with those making between $20,000 and $30,000 seeing their tax bills rise starting in 2021. By 2027, they would see a 25.4 percent increase in their tax bill.
House Energy and Commerce nudges HHS on device cybersecurity
A House committee is asking the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to secure the cybersecurity of medical devices by shoring up supply chains.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Greg Walden (R-Ore.) sent a letter on behalf of the committee to HHS asking the agency begin requiring device makers to list bills of materials — an accounting of third-party software components used in each product.
“Stakeholders do not know, and often have no way of knowing, exactly what software or hardware exist within the technologies on which they rely to provide vital medical care,” the letter reads.
Signs of progress, challenges in fighting Alzheimer’s
Despite high-profile failures of potential treatments for Alzheimer’s, experts say increased visibility and progress on the underlying causes of the disease are signs of hope.
With a new case of the brain-debilitating disorder developing every minute in the U.S., the need for effective treatment is urgent both for patients and the medical system as the population ages.
Elements of progress include increased awareness from policymakers and the general public. With that, has come new funding and less stigma, patients and experts said at Preparing for a Treatment, an event tackling the response to the disease, sponsored by The Hill and Biogen on Thursday.
Still, the rate of new patients expected to be diagnosed is not keeping up with new medications and models for the health system to cope, they said.
From The Hill’s opinion pages
The Republican plan is to take away your health care to pay for their tax cuts
We need more than $57,000 to battle opioid crisis
What we’re reading
Tax-exempt Mayo Clinic grows, but rural patients pay a price (Politico)
Can apps slay the medical bill dragon? (Kaiser Health News)
He rails against the drug industry. But Trump is turning to its ranks to fill his administration (Stat)
Middle class families confront soaring health insurance costs (The New York Times)
State by state
For millions of insured Americans, state health laws don’t apply (Kaiser Health News)
‘MinnesotaCare Buy-In’ hopes to improve state healthcare (Newsleaders)
IlliniCare slashing rates to Medicaid suppliers (Crain’s Chicago Business)
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