The Upton Amendment to the ACA Repeal Bill Will Have Almost No Effect

House Republicans are proposing to invest additional money in bad policy. Moderate members have been offered $8 billion more in the American Health Care Act, or AHCA, that could help fund high-risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions, a policy that has failed to provide adequate health coverage in the past. With the deal, up to $138 billion could go to high-risk pools under the AHCA, but that additional $8 billion would subsidize just 76,000 more people.

The high-risk pool plan is an attempt to cover up for another provision in the bill, via an amendment by New Jersey Rep. Tom MacArthur (R), that would allow states to easily waive protections for Americans with pre-existing conditions in the individual market if they experienced a gap in coverage.

The Center for American Progress found that the $130 billion of funding already in the AHCA would be insufficient to sustain even a small high-risk pool. Supposing the size of the pool was about 5 percent of the small-group and individual markets, the AHCA would need to provide a total of $327 billion to offer moderately subsidized high-risk pool coverage for those 1.5 million people. The current version of the AHCA falls $200 billion short of that, and the $8 billion promised to House Republican moderates would fill in just 4 percent of the funding gap.

more
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/healthcare/news/2017/05/03/431827/upton-amendment-aca-repeal-bill-will-almost-no-effect/

How ACA Repeal Would Hurt Farmers and Rural Communities

BY DEBBIE WEINGARTEN | HEALTH, Young Farmers Unite
05.04.17
In the spring of 2015, Kathryn Skelley-Watts took a break from planting crops at Aardvark Farm, the 12-acre organic operation that she owns with her partner, to take a run through the woods. That night, she found a tick lodged in her calf muscle. The next day, a rash began appearing on her neck. Two weeks later, the rash covered half of her body, she had a high fever, and she could barely move. A diagnosis of Lyme disease led to a twi-month round of antibiotics and steroids.

Aardvark Farm crawled to a near stop as Skelley-Watts and her partner Rett Murphy fought the disease. When the antibiotics failed to stop the infection, Skelley-Watts rotated between doctors and specialists. She was prescribed more medication, underwent a litany of tests, and received additional companion diagnoses. On her blog, Skelley-Watts wrote, “I’m fortunate to have caught Lyme disease when I did. I was no longer broke and uninsured.” If it weren’t for insurance, one of the drugs she relies on, would cost around $1,300 for a 10-day supply.

Five years earlier, when President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (ACA) into law, Skelley-Watts had been quick to sign up. Before that, she hadn’t qualified for health insurance due to a pre-existing digestive condition. Like many farmers, Skelley-Watts is waiting with bated breath to see whether her coverage will continue.

Today, nearly 20 million Americans receive health insurance under the ACA. But as the Republicans in Congress frantically work to repeal-and-replace the act, the future of that coverage is in question. The first replacement plan—the American Health Care Act (AHCA)—was opposed by 56 percent of voters. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that while AHCA would have reduced the budget deficit by $337 billion by 2026, 24 million Americans would have lost their health insurance.

more

http://civileats.com/2017/05/04/how-aca-repeal-would-hurt-farmers-and-rural-communities/

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Medica, the last insurer selling individual health policies in most of Iowa, likely to exit

Tens of thousands of Iowans could be left with no health insurance options next year, after the last carrier for most of the state announced Wednesday that it likely would stop selling individual health policies here.



Medica, a Minnesota based health insurer, released a statement suggesting it was close to following two larger carriers in deciding not to sell such policies in Iowa for 2018, due to instability in the market.

“Without swift action by the state or Congress to provide stability to Iowa’s individual insurance market, Medica will not be able to serve the citizens of Iowa in the manner and breadth that we do today. We are examining the potential of limited offerings, but our ability to stay in the Iowa insurance market in any capacity is in question at this point,” the company’s statement said.

Medica’s move comes on the heels of announcements last month that Aetna and Wellmark Blue Cross & Blue Shield are pulling out of Iowa’s individual health insurance market. Those are the only three choices for individual health insurance in most areas of the state this year.

more

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/health/2017/05/03/medica-last-insurer-selling-individual-health-policies-most-iowa-likely-exit/309664001/

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