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Tag: Actuarial value
Six Things about Pre-Existing Conditions Republican "Leaders" Still Don't Get
"If at first you don't succeed, go ahead and quit." That might be the takeaway from excerpts of a conference call held earlier this month by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), and published in the Washington Post.
McCarthy claimed that Republicans' "repeal and replace" legislation last Congress "put [the] pre-existing condition campaign against us, and so even people who are [sic] running for the very first time got attacked on that. And that was the defining issue and the most important issue in the [midterm election] race." He added: "If you'll notice, we haven't done anything when it comes to repealing Obamacare this time."
While entirely predictable, McCarthy's comments make little sense, on multiple levels. Abject surrender may make Republican "leaders" feel better about themselves, but it won't solve their fundamental problems.
Problem 1: Pre-Existing Condition Provisions In Context
I first noted this dilemma last summer: Liberals call the pre-existing condition provisions "popular" because their polls only ask about the policy, and not its costs. If you ask Americans whether they would like a "free" car, how many people do you think would turn it down? The same principle applies here.
When polls ask about the trade-offs associated with the pre-existing condition provisions—which a Heritage Foundation study called the largest driver of premium increases under Obamacare—support plummets. Cato surveys in both 2017 and 2018 confirmed this fact. Moreover, a Gallup poll released after the election shows that, by double-digit margins, Americans care more about rising health premiums and costs than about losing coverage due to a pre-existing condition.
The overall polling picture provided an opportunity for Republicans to push back and point out that the pre-existing condition provisions have led to skyrocketing premiums, which priced 2.5 million people out of the insurance marketplace from 2017 to 2018. Instead, most Republicans did nothing.
Problem 2: Republicans' Awful Legislating
McCarthy's comments referred to an amendment offered by Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ), who lost his re-election bid in November. The House and Senate bills all suffered from the same general design flaw: They went far enough in repealing Obamacare regulations to prompt political attacks from Democrats, but not far enough for Republicans to tout much tangible benefit for consumers.
The bills' flaws came from a failure to understand how Obamacare works. The law's provisions requiring insurers to offer coverage to everyone (guaranteed issue) and price that coverage the same regardless of health status (community rating) make insurers want to avoid covering sick people. Those two provisions necessitate another two requirements, which force insurers to cover certain conditions (essential health benefits) and a certain percentage of expected health costs (actuarial value).
In general, the House and Senate bills either repealed, or allowed states to waive, the latter two regulations, while keeping the former two in place. If Republicans had repealed all of Obamacare's insurance regulations, they could have generated sizable premium savings—an important metric, and one they could tout to constituents. Instead, they ended up in a political no man's land, with people upset about losing their pre-existing condition "protections," and no large premium reductions to offset that outrage.
Looking at this dynamic objectively, it isn't surprising that McCarthy and his colleagues ended up with a political loser on their hands. The true surprise is why anyone ever thought the legislative strategy made for good politics—or, for that matter, good (or even coherent) policy.
Problem 3: Pre-Existing Conditions Aren't Going Away
McCarthy evidently believes that endorsing Obamacare's pre-existing condition provisions will buy House Republicans time and silence from the left. In reality, appeasement will work about as well for Republican "leaders" as it did for a "leader" like Neville Chamberlain.
Within hours after Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) introduced a bill last year maintaining Obamacare's pre-existing condition provisions—the requirement that all insurers offer coverage at the same rates to all individuals, regardless of health status—liberals weighed in to call it insufficient.
As noted above, Obamacare encourages insurers to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions. Repealing only some of the law's regulations would exacerbate that dynamic, by giving insurers more tools with which to avoid enrolling sick people. Liberals recognize this fact, and will say as much any time Republicans try to modify any of Obamacare's major insurance regulations.
To put it in more crass political terms: Republicans face the same political dynamic they faced earlier this decade, when any talk of entitlement reform prompted attack ads portraying the party as wanting to throw Grandma off a cliff. As with the "Mediscare" ads, attacking Republicans on pre-existing conditions is now part of the Democratic playbook—so McCarthy and his colleagues had better put on their big boy pants, get used to the attacks, and come up with responses to them, rather than just quivering in a corner and hoping the issue goes away. Because it won't.
Problem 4: Better Policies Exist
According to the Post, McCarthy said he wants to recruit candidates who would "find a solution at the end of the day." A good thing that, because better solutions for the problems of pre-existing conditions do exist (I've written about several) if McCarthy had ever bothered to look for them.
Their political attacks demonstrate that liberals focus on supporting "insurance" for people once they develop a pre-existing condition. (Those individuals' coverage by definition really isn't "insurance.") By contrast, conservatives should support making coverage more affordable, such that people can buy it before they develop a pre-existing condition—and keep it once they're diagnosed with one.
Regulations proposed by the Trump administration late last year could help immensely on this front, by allowing employers to subsidize insurance that individuals hold and keep—that is, coverage that remains portable from job to job. Similar solutions, like health status insurance, would also encourage portability of insurance throughout one's lifetime. Other options, such as direct primary care and high-risk pools, could provide care for people who have already developed pre-existing conditions.
Using a series of targeted alternatives to reduce and then to solve the pre-existing condition problem would prove far preferable than the blunt alternative of one-size-fits-all government regulations that have made coverage unaffordable for millions. However, such a solution would require political will from Republicans—which to date they have unequivocally lacked.
Problem 5: Republicans' Alternative Is Socialized Medicine
Instead of promoting those better policies, House Republican leaders would like to cave in the most efficient manner possible. During the first day of Congress, they offered a procedural motion that, had it been adopted, would have instructed the relevant committees of jurisdiction to report legislation that:
(1) Guarantees no American citizen can be denied health insurance coverage as the result of a previous illness or health status; and (2) Guarantees no American citizen can be charged higher premiums or cost sharing as the result of a previous illness or health status, thus ensuring affordable health coverage for those with pre-existing conditions.
Guaranteeing that everyone gets charged the same price for health care? I believe that's called socialism—and socialized medicine.
Their position makes it very ironic that the same Republican committee leaders are pushing for hearings on Democrats' single-payer legislation. It's a bit rich to endorse one form of socialism, only to denounce another form as something that will destroy the country. (Of course, Republican leaders will only take that position unless and until a single-payer bill passes, at which point they will likely try to embrace it themselves.)
Problem 6: Health Care Isn't Going Away As An Issue
The federal debt this month passed $22 trillion, and continues to rise. Most of our long-term government deficits arise from health care—the ongoing retirement of the baby boomers, and our corresponding obligations to Medicare, Medicaid, and now Obamacare.
Any Republican who cares about a strong national defense, or keeping tax rates low—concerns most Republicans embrace—should care about, and take an active interest in, health care and health policy. Given his comments about not repealing, or even talking about, Obamacare, McCarthy apparently does not.
But unsustainable trends are, in the long run, unsustainable. At some point in the not-too-distant future, skyrocketing spending on health care will mean that McCarthy will have to care—as will President Trump, and the Democrats who have gone out of their way to avoid talking about Medicare's sizable financial woes. Here's hoping that by that point, McCarthy and Republican leaders will have a more coherent—and conservative—policy than total surrender to the left.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on February 18, 2019 March 6, 2019 Categories Coverage, Premiums, Regulations, TaxesTags "Repeal and Replace", Actuarial value, Affordability, Baby Boomers, Community rating, Debt, Entitlement reform, Essential health benefits, Guaranteed issue, Health Reimbursement Arrangements, Kevin McCarthy, Mediscare, Portability, Pre-existing condition tax, Pre-existing conditions, Socialism, The Federalist, Thom Tillis, Tom MacArthur, Washington Post
How Republicans Shot Themselves in the Foot on Pre-Existing Conditions
Republicans who want to blame their election shortcomings on last year's attempt to "repeal-and-replace" Obamacare will have all the fodder they need from the media. A full two weeks before Election Day, the bedwetters caucus was already out in full force:
House Republicans are increasingly worried that Democrats' attacks on their votes to repeal and replace Obamacare could cost them the House. While the legislation stalled in the Senate, it's become a toxic issue on the campaign trail for the House Republicans who backed it.
In reality, however, the seeds of this problem go well beyond this Congress, or even the last election cycle. A health care strategy based on a simple but contradictory slogan created a policy orphan that few Republicans could readily defend.
A Dumb Political Slogan
A few days before Donald Trump's inauguration last January, the New York Times ran a story highlighting the history of the "repeal-and-replace" mantra. The Times attributed the slogan to Josh Holmes, then the chief of staff for Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who coined it on the day Obamacare passed Congress. The end of the story featured a telling comment: "Mr. Holmes acknowledged that he had to create only the phrase, not the actual replacement. 'I don't do policy,' he said with a laugh."
Around the same time last year, I wrote an article explaining why the "repeal-and-replace" mantra would prove so problematic for the Republican Congress trying to translate the slogan into law. Conservatives seized on the "repeal" element to focus on eradicating the law, and taking steps to help lower health costs.
By contrast, moderates assumed that "replace" meant Republican lawmakers had embraced the mantra of universal health coverage, and would maintain most of the benefits—both the number of Americans with insurance and the regulatory "protections"—of Obamacare itself. Two disparate philosophies linked by a conjunction does not a governing platform make. The past two years proved as much.
A Non-Sensical Bill
In life, one mistake can often lead to another, and so it proved in health care. After having created an internal divide through the "repeal-and-replace" mantra over four election cycles, Republicans had to put policy meat on the details they had papered over for seven years. In so doing, they ended up with a "solution" that appealed to no one.
While the details of the House and Senate legislation varied, they followed a three-part formula. In general, the bills:
Removed Obamacare's requirements for what treatments insurers must cover (e.g., essential health benefits);
Removed Obamacare's requirements about how much of these treatments insurers must cover (e.g., actuarial value, which measures a percentage of expected health expenses covered by insurance); but
Retained Obamacare's requirements about whom insurance must cover—the requirement to cover all applicants (guaranteed issue), and the related requirement not to vary premiums based on health status (community rating).
As I first outlined early last year, this regulatory combination resulted in a witch's brew of bad outcomes on both the policy and political fronts:
Because lawmakers retained the requirements for insurers to cover all individuals, regardless of health status, the bills didn't reduce premiums much. If insurers must charge all individuals the same rates regardless of their health, they will assume that a disproportionately sicker population will sign up. That dynamic meant the bills did little to reverse the more-than-doubling of individual market insurance premiums from 2013-17. What little premium reduction did materialize came largely due to the corporate welfare payments the bills funneled to insurers in the form of a "Stability Fund."
However, because lawmakers removed the requirements about what and how much insurers must cover, liberal groups raised questions about access to care, particularly for sicker populations. This dynamic led to the myriad charges and political attacks about Republicans "gutting" care for people with pre-existing conditions.
You couldn't have picked a worse combination for lawmakers to try to defend. The bills as written created a plethora of "losers" and very few clear "winners." Legislators absorbed most of the political pain regarding pre-existing conditions that they would have received had they repealed those regulations (i.e., guaranteed issue and community rating) outright, but virtually none of the political gain (i.e., lower premiums) from doing so.
Some people—including yours truly—predicted this outcome. Before the House voted on its bill, I noted that this combination would prove untenable from a policy perspective, and politically problematic to boot. Republicans plowed ahead anyway, likely because they saw this option as the only way to breach the policy chasm caused by bad sloganeering, and paid the price.
Lawmaker Ignorance and Apathy
More than three years ago, Peter Suderman recounted the decades of Republican inaction on health care. From the defeat of "Hillarycare" in 1994 to the inauguration of President Obama 15 years later, Republicans largely ignored the issue, while Democrats took the time to forge the policy consensus that eventually led to Obamacare.
That apathy continued after Obamacare's enactment. While Suderman articulated an alternative vision to the law, he admitted that "Republicans can't make the case for that plan because they've never figured out what it would look like. The GOP plan is always in development but never ready for final release."
Emphasizing the "repeal-and-replace" mantra allowed Republicans to avoid face the very real trade-offs that come with making health policy. When a Republican Congress finally had to look those trade-offs in the face, it couldn't. Many didn't know what they wanted, or wanted a pain-free solution ("Who knew health care could be so complicated?"). Difficulty regarding trade-offs led to the further difficulty of unifying behind a singular policy.
Can't Avoid Health Care
Many conservative lawmakers face something that could be described as "health policy PTSD"—they don't understand it, so they don't study it; they only define their views by what they oppose (e.g., "Hillarycare" and Obamacare); and when they put out proposals (e.g., premium support for Medicare and "repeal-and-replace" on Obamacare), they get attacked. So they conclude that they should never talk about the issue or put out proposals. Doubtless Tuesday's election results will confirm that tendency for some.
But health care has become far too large an element of the federal budget, let alone the economy as a whole, to ignore for any length of time. Put simply, any lawmaker who believes in 1) a strong national defense, 2) low levels of taxation, or 3) a fiscally sustainable government—and most conservatives believe in one, if not several, of these concepts— has to take an active interest in health policy. Baby boomers' continued retirement highlights the unsustainable nature of our current entitlement system, which Obamacare did nothing to solve, and arguably made worse.
Rather than using the election results to avoid health care, Republican lawmakers instead should lean in to the issue, to understand it and ascertain what concepts and policies they support. The left knows exactly what it wants from health care: More regulation, more spending, and more government control—leading ultimately to total government control.
Conservatives must act now to articulate an alternative vision, because the 800-pound gorilla of Washington policy will not disappear any time soon.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on November 12, 2018 January 4, 2019 Categories Costs, Coverage, Premiums, RegulationsTags "Repeal and Replace", Actuarial value, Baby Boomers, Bailouts, Binary choice, Community rating, Consumer protections, Cronyism, Demographics, Donald Trump, Entitlement reform, Essential health benefits, Guaranteed issue, Hillarycare, Josh Holmes, Mitch McConnell, New York Times, Peter Suderman, Pre-existing conditions, Premium increases, Stability bill, The Federalist, Unsustainable
Summary of Health Care "Consensus" Group Plan
Tuesday, a group of analysts including those at the Heritage Foundation released their outline for a way to pass health-care-related legislation in Congress. Readers can find the actual health plan here; a summary and analysis follow below.
What Does the Health Plan Include?
The plan includes parameters for a state-based block grant that would combine funds from Obamacare's insurance subsidies and its Medicaid expansion into one pot of money. The plan would funnel the block grant funds through the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), using that program's pro-life protections. In general, states using the block grant would:
Spend at least half of the funds subsidizing private health coverage;
Spend at least half of the funds subsidizing low-income individuals (which can overlap with the first pot of funds);
Spend an unspecified percentage of their funds subsidizing high-risk patients with high health costs;
Allow anyone who qualifies for SCHIP or Medicaid to take the value of their benefits and use those funds to subsidize private coverage; and
Not face federal requirements regarding 1) essential health benefits; 2) the single risk pool; 3) medical loss ratios; and 4) the 3:1 age ratio (i.e., insurers can charge older customers only three times as much as younger customers).
The plan also includes new incentives for health savings accounts (HSAs), doubling the maximum contribution limit, and allowing more plans to qualify based on their actuarial value (the average percentage of annual health expenses that a health plan pays).
Pretty much. For instance, the plan remains silent on whether to support an Obamacare "stability" (read: bailout) bill intended to 1) keep insurance markets intact during the transition to the block grant, and 2) attract the votes of moderate Republicans like Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Maine Sen. Susan Collins.
As recently as three weeks ago, former Sen. Rick Santorum was telling groups that the proposal would include the Collins "stability" language. However, as I previously noted, doing so would likely lead to taxpayer funding of abortion coverage, because there are few if any ways to attach pro-life protections to Obamacare's cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers under the special budget reconciliation procedures the Senate would use to consider "repeal-and-replace" legislation.
What Parts of Obamacare Would the Plan Retain?
In short, most of them.
Spending: The plan says the block grant "would be based upon spending, as of a fixed date, on [Obamacare] subsidies (both tax credits and [cost-sharing reduction] payments) and Medicaid expansion." This wording makes clear that the plan intends to retain all of the Obamacare spending, and redirect those funds to the block grant.
Taxes and Medicare Reductions: By retaining all of Obamacare's spending, the plan would retain all of Obamacare's tax increases—either that, or it would increase the deficit. Likewise, the plan says nothing about undoing Obamacare's Medicare reductions. By retaining Obamacare's spending levels, the plan would maintain the gimmick of double-counting, whereby the law's payment reductions are used both to "save Medicare" and fund Obamacare.
Insurance Regulations: The Congressional Research Service lists 22 separate new federal requirements imposed on health insurance plans under Obamacare. The plan would retain at least 14 of them:
Guaranteed issue of coverage—Section 2702 of the Public Health Service Act;
Non-discrimination based on health status—Section 2705 of the Public Health Service Act;
Extension of dependent coverage—Section 2714 of the Public Health Service Act;
Prohibition of discrimination based on salary—Section 2716 of the Public Health Service Act (only applies to employer plans);
Waiting period limitation—Section 2708 of the Public Health Service Act (only applies to employer plans);
Guaranteed renewability—Section 2703 of the Public Health Service Act;
Prohibition on rescissions—Section 2712 of the Public Health Service Act;
Rate review—Section 2794 of the Public Health Service Act;
Coverage of preventive health services without cost sharing—Section 2713 of the Public Health Service Act;
Coverage of pre-existing health conditions—Section 2703 of the Public Health Service Act;
Summary of benefits and coverage—Section 2715 of the Public Health Service Act;
Appeals process—Section 2719 of the Public Health Service Act;
Patient protections—Section 2719A of the Public Health Service Act; and
Non-discrimination regarding clinical trial participation—Section 2709 of the Public Health Service Act.
Are Parts of the Health Plan Unclear?
Yes. For instance, the plan says that "Obamacare requirements on essential health benefits" would not apply in states receiving block grant funds. However, Section 1302 of Obamacare—which codified the essential health benefits requirement—also included two other requirements, one capping annual cost-sharing (Section 1302(c)) and another imposing minimum actuarial value requirements (Section 1302(d)).
Because the plan also talks about linking HSA eligibility to actuarial value requirements, it is unclear whether the plan would retain the federal actuarial value standards (and for that matter, the limit on annual cost-sharing). If the plan's authors intended to retain either or both of those requirements, then the 14 out of 22 Obamacare-related insurance requirements retained in the plan would rise.
Additionally, the plan on two occasions says that "insurers could offer discounts to people who are continuously covered." House Republicans offered a similar proposal in their American Health Care Act last year, one that imposed penalties on individuals failing to maintain continuous coverage.
However, the plan includes no specific proposal on how insurers could go about offering such discounts, as the plan states that the 3:1 age rating requirement—and presumably only that requirement—would not apply for states receiving block grant funds. It is unclear whether or how insurers would have the flexibility under the plan to offer discounts for continuous coverage if all of Obamacare's restrictions on premium rating, save that for age, remain.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on June 20, 2018 January 3, 2019 Categories Costs, Coverage, Medicaid and SCHIP, Medicare, Premiums, Regulations, TaxesTags "Repeal and Replace", Abortion, Accounting gimmick, Actuarial value, Age rating, American Health Care Act, Bailouts, Benefit mandates, Block grant, Byrd rule, Community rating, Congressional Research Service, Continuous coverage, Contraception mandate, Double counting, Essential health benefits, Government spending, Graham-Cassidy, Guaranteed issue, Guaranteed renewability, Health Savings Accounts, Heritage Foundation, High-risk pools, Hyde Amendment, Lisa Murkowski, Medical loss ratio, Premium assistance, Preventive care, Public Health Service Act, Rate review, Reconciliation, Rescissions, Rick Santorum, SCHIP, Stability bill, Susan Collins, The Federalist, Under-26 mandate
The Absurdity of the Justice Department's Obamacare Lawsuit Intervention
Last summer, I wrote about how President Trump had created the worst of all possible outcomes regarding one Obamacare program. In threatening to cancel cost-sharing reduction payments to insurers, but not actually doing so, the administration forced insurers into raising premiums, while not complying with the rule of law by cutting off the payments outright.
Eventually, the administration finally did cut off the payments in October, but for several months, the uncertainty represented a self-inflicted wound. So too a brief filed by the Department of Justice (DOJ) late last week regarding an Obamacare lawsuit several states brought in February, which asked the court to strike down both Obamacare's individual mandate and the most important of its federally imposed insurance regulations.
DOJ's action represented the right policy outcome, but in the wrong venue—because Congress and not the courts have proper jurisdiction to strike down the structure of the law. In the days since, the DOJ filing has drawn criticism from conservatives worried that it undermines the rule of law, from liberals who want to preserve Obamacare's "consumer protections," and from Republican lawmakers desperate to avoid the issue becoming a political football in November. (Too late.)
It takes a very unique set of circumstances to arrive at this level of opposition. Herewith the policy, legal, and political implications of DOJ's actions.
Let's Talk Policy First
Strictly as a policy matter, I agree with the general tenor of the Justice Department's proposals. Last April, I analyzed Obamacare's four major federally imposed insurance regulations:
Guaranteed issue—accepting all applicants, regardless of health status;
Community rating—charging all applicants the same premiums, regardless of health status;
Essential health benefits—requiring plans to cover certain types of services; and
Actuarial value—requiring plans to cover a certain percentage of each service.
I concluded that these four regulations represented a binary choice for policymakers: Either Congress should repeal them all, and allow insurers to price individuals' health risk accordingly, or leave them all in place. Picking and choosing would likely result in unintended consequences.
For instance, repealing essential benefits while leaving the other requirements in place would encourage insurers to discriminate against the sick by tailoring their benefits—a plan might not cover chemotherapy, so patients with cancer would not want to enroll in that plan.
The Justice Department's brief asks the federal court to strike down the first two federal regulations, but not the last two. This outcome could have some unintended consequences, as a New York Times analysis notes.
But repealing the guaranteed issue and community rating regulations would remove the prime driver of premium increases under Obamacare. Those two regulations led rates for individual coverage to more than double from 2013 to 2017, necessitating the requirement for individuals to purchase, and employers to offer, health coverage, the subsidies to make coverage more "affordable," and the tax increases and Medicare reductions used to fund them.
I noted last April that Republicans have a choice: They can either keep the status quo on pre-existing conditions or they can fulfill their promise to repeal Obamacare. They cannot do both. The DOJ brief acknowledges this dilemma, and that the regulations represent the heart of the Obamacare scheme.
Legal Question 1: Constitutionality
Both the plaintiff states' original complaint in the lawsuit and last week's Justice Department brief cite Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' controlling opinion in the 2012 Supreme Court case of NFIB v. Sebelius. Roberts famously held that Obamacare's individual mandate functions as a tax, despite language in the law itself calling the mandate a "penalty" and not a tax.
Roberts held that, while the federal government did not have the power to compel individuals to purchase health coverage under the Constitution's Commerce Clause, Congress did have the power to impose a tax penalty on the non-purchase of coverage, and upheld the individual mandate on that basis.
But late last year, Congress set the mandate penalty to zero, with the provision taking effect next January. Both the plaintiff states and DOJ argue that, because the mandate will not generate revenue for the federal government beyond 2019, it can no longer function as a tax, and should be struck down as unconstitutional.
Ironically, if Congress took an unconstitutional act in setting the mandate penalty to zero, few seem to have spent little time arguing as much prior to the tax bill's enactment last December. I opposed Congress' action at the time, because I thought Congress needed to repeal more of Obamacare—i.e., the regulations discussed above. But few raised any concerns that setting the mandate penalty to zero represented an unconstitutional act:
While one school of thought suggests presidents should not sign unconstitutional legislation, President Trump signed the tax bill into law.
Likewise, President Trump did not issue a signing statement about the tax bill, seemingly indicating that the Trump administration had no concerns about the bill, constitutional or otherwise.
While in 2009 the Senate took a separate vote on the constitutionality of Obamacare, no one raised such a point of order during the Senate's debate on the tax bill.
I used to work for one of the plaintiffs in the states' lawsuit, the Texas Public Policy Foundation. TPPF put out no statement challenging the constitutionality of Congress' move in the tax bill.
The president of course takes an oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution," while members of Congress take an oath to "support and defend the Constitution." In this case, it appears that many either did not ponder the constitutional applications of Congress' action until after the law passed—or, worse yet, wanted Congress to take a potentially unconstitutional act regarding Obamacare's individual mandate, in the hopes that the courts would use it to strike down the rest of the law.
Legal Question 2: Severability
As others have noted, a court decision striking down the individual mandate as unconstitutional would by itself have few practical ramifications, given that Congress already set the mandate penalty to zero, beginning in January. The major fight lies in severability—either striking down the entire law, as the states request, or striking down the two major federal insurance regulations, as the Justice Department suggested last week.
The DOJ brief and the states' original complaint both cite Section 1501(a) of Obamacare in making their claims to strike down more than just the mandate. DOJ cited that section—which called the mandate "essential to creating effective health insurance markets"—13 times in a 21-page brief, while the states cited that section 18 times in a 33-page complaint.
But that claim fails, for several reasons. First, the list of findings in Section 1501(a)(2) of the law discusses the mandate's "effects on the national economy and interstate commerce." In other words, this section of findings attempted to defend the individual mandate as a constitutional exercise of Congress' power under the Commerce Clause—an argument Roberts struck down in the NFIB v. Sebelius ruling six years ago.
Second, the plaintiffs and the Justice Department briefs focus more on what a Congress eight years ago said—i.e., their non-binding findings to defend the individual mandate under the Commerce Clause—than what the current Congress did when it set the mandate penalty to zero, but left the rest of Obamacare intact. The Justice Department tried to retain a fig leaf of consistency by taking the same position regarding severability that the Obama administration did before the Supreme Court in 2012: that if the mandate falls, the guaranteed issue and community rating provisions (and only those provisions) should as well.
However, the Justice Department's brief all but ignores Congress's intervention last year. In a letter to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) regarding the lawsuit, Attorney General Jeff Sessions noted that "We presume that Congress legislates with knowledge of the [Supreme] Court's findings." A corollary to that maxim should find that the administration takes decisions with knowledge of Congress' actions.
But rather than observing how this Congress zeroed out the mandate penalty while leaving the rest of Obamacare intact, DOJ claimed that the 2010 findings should control, because Congress did not repeal them. (Due to procedural concerns surrounding budget reconciliation, Senate Republicans arguably could not have repealed them in last year's tax bill even if they wanted to.)
Third, as the brief by a series of Democratic state attorneys general—who received permission to intervene in the case—makes plain, Republican members of Congress said repeatedly during the tax bill debate last year that they were not changing any other part of the law. For instance, during the Senate Finance Committee markup of the tax bill, the committee's chairman, Orrin Hatch (R-UT), said the following:
Let us be clear, repealing the [mandate] tax does not take anyone's health insurance away. No one would lose access to coverage or subsidies that help them pay for coverage unless they chose not to enroll in health coverage once the penalty for doing so is no longer in effect. No one would be kicked off of Medicare. No one would lose insurance they are currently getting from insurance carriers. Nothing—nothing—in the modified mark impacts Obamacare policies like coverage for preexisting conditions or restrictions against lifetime limits on coverage….
The bill does nothing to alter Title 1 of Obamacare, which includes all of the insurance mandates and requirements related to preexisting conditions and essential health benefits.
As noted above, I want Congress to repeal more of Obamacare—all of it, in fact. But what I want to happen and what Congress did are two different things. When Congress explicitly set the mandate penalty to zero but left the rest of the law intact, I should not (and will not) go running to an activist judge trying to get him or her to ignore the will of Congress and strike all of it down regardless. That's what liberals do.
Too Cute by Half Problem 1: Legal Outcomes
The brief the Democratic attorneys general filed suggested another possible outcome—one that would not please the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. While the attorneys general attempted to defend the mandate's constitutionality despite the impending loss of the tax penalty, they offered another solution should the court find the revised mandate unconstitutional:
Under long-standing principles of statutory construction, when a legislature purports to amend an existing statute in a way that would render the statute (or part of the statute) unconstitutional, the amendment is void, and the statute continues to operate as it did before the invalid amendment was enacted.
It remains to be seen whether the courts will find this argument credible. But if they do, a lawsuit seeking to strike down all of Obamacare could actually restore part of it, by getting the court to reinstate the tax penalties associated with the mandate.
This scenario could get worse. In 2015, the Senate parliamentarian offered guidance that Congress could set the mandate penalty to zero, but not repeal it outright, as part of a budget reconciliation bill. Republicans used this precedent to zero-out the mandate in last year's tax bill. But a court ruling stating that Congress cannot constitutionally set the mandate penalty to zero, and must instead repeal it outright, means Senate Republicans would have to muster 60 votes to do so—an outcome meaning the mandate might never get repealed.
In June 2015, the Supreme Court issued a ruling in the case of King v. Burwell. In its opinion, the court ruled that individuals in states that did not establish their own exchanges (and used the federally run healthcare.gov instead) could qualify for health insurance subsidies. By codifying an ambiguity in the Obamacare statute in favor of the subsidies, the court's ruling prevented the Trump administration from later taking executive action to block those subsidies.
In King v. Burwell, litigating over uncertainty in Obamacare ended up precluding a future administration from taking action to dismantle it. The same thing could happen with this newest lawsuit.
Too Cute by Half Problem 2: Legislative Action
Sooner or later, someone will recognize an easy solution exists that would solve both the problem of constitutionality and severability: Congress passing legislation to repeal the mandate outright, after the tax bill set the penalty to zero. But this scenario could lead to all sorts of inconsistent, yet politically convenient, outcomes:
Democrats attacking Republicans over last week's DOJ brief might oppose repealing a (now-defanged) individual mandate, because it would remove what they view as a powerful political issue heading into November's midterm elections;
Republicans afraid of Democrats' political attacks might say they repealed a part of Obamacare (i.e., the individual mandate) outright to "protect" the rest of Obamacare (i.e., the federal regulations and other assorted components of the law) from being struck down by an activist judge; and
Some on the Right might oppose Congress taking action to repeal "just" the individual mandate, because they want the courts to strike down the entire law—even though such a job rightly lies within Congress' purview.
As others have noted, these contortionistic, "Through the Looking Glass" scenarios speak volumes about the tortured basis for this lawsuit. The Trump administration should spend less time writing briefs that support legislating from the bench by unelected judges, and more time working with Congress to do its job and repeal the law itself.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on June 15, 2018 January 3, 2019 Categories Coverage, Premiums, Regulations, TaxesTags Actuarial value, Binary choice, Commerce Clause, Community rating, Cost-sharing reductions, Department of Justice, Donald Trump, Employer mandate, Essential health benefits, Exchange subsidies, Guaranteed issue, Individual mandate, Jeff Sessions, John Roberts, King v. Burwell, New York Times, Orrin Hatch, Paul Ryan, Premium increases, Reconciliation, Senate parliamentarian, Severability, Signing statement, Supreme Court case, Tax reform, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Texas v. Azar, The Federalist, Unconstitutional
24 New Federal Requirements Added to the Graham-Cassidy Bill
Last week, I outlined how a white paper Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) released essentially advocated for Obamacare on steroids. That plan would keep the law's most expensive (and onerous) federal insurance requirements, while calling for more taxpayer dollars to make that expensive coverage more "affordable."
Unfortunately, Cassidy also would extend this highly regulatory approach beyond mere white papers and into legislation. A recently disclosed copy of a revised Graham-Cassidy bill—originally developed by Cassidy and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) last fall—imposes two dozen new requirements on states. These requirements would undermine the bill's supposed goal of "state flexibility," and could lead to a regime more onerous and expensive than Obamacare itself.
18 New 'Adequate and Affordable' Coverage Rules
Language beginning on the bottom of page 12 contains new restrictions on states that want to receive the $1.176 trillion in block-grant funding that the Graham-Cassidy bill offers. Whereas last fall's version required states to "maintain access to adequate and affordable health insurance coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions," the new version defines "adequate" coverage in minute and excruciating detail.
Specifically, that coverage must:
Include four categories of basic services defined in the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) statute:
Inpatient and outpatient hospital services;
Physicians' surgical and medical services;
Laboratory and X-ray services, and
Well-baby and well-child care, including age-appropriate immunizations;
Include three categories of additional services also defined in the SCHIP statute:
Coverage of prescription drugs;
Vision services; and
Hearing services;
Include two other categories of services as defined by Obamacare:
Mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; and
Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices;
Comply with actuarial value standards set by the SCHIP statute:
Cover at least 70 percent of estimated health expenses for the average consumer; and
Comply with requirements included in eight separate sections of the Public Health Service Act, as amended by Obamacare:
Section 2701—Rating premiums only based on age (with older applicants charged no more than three times younger applicants), family size, geography, and tobacco use;
Section 2702—Required acceptance for every individual or employer who applies for coverage (i.e., guaranteed issue);
Section 2703—Guaranteed renewability of coverage;
Section 2704—Prohibition on pre-existing condition exclusions;
Section 2705—Prohibition on discriminating against individuals based on health status;
Section 2708—Prohibition on excessive waiting periods;
Section 2711—Prohibition on annual or lifetime limits; and
Section 2713—Requiring first-dollar coverage of preventive services without cost-sharing (i.e., deductibles and co-payments).
As noted above, "adequate and affordable health insurance coverage" would include many of Obamacare's insurance requirements, and in at least one way would exceed them. Whereas Section 1302(d) of Obamacare requires selling insurance with an actuarial value—that is, the percentage of medical expenses paid for the average individual—of at least 60 percent, the revised Graham-Cassidy would require "adequate and affordable" coverage with an actuarial value of at least 70 percent.
If asked, Graham and Cassidy might state that these requirements would only apply to a certain subset of the population. After all, the revised bill text indicates that each state "shall ensure access to adequate and affordable health insurance coverage (as defined in clause (ii))"—the clause referring to the 18 separate requirements listed above—"for [high-risk individuals]." The bill lists the brackets in the original, which might indicate that Cassidy's office intends to apply these 18 separate coverage requirements only to plans that high-risk persons purchase.
But the bill nowhere defines a "high-risk individual"—nor, for that matter, does it define the "affordable" part of "adequate and affordable health coverage"—continuing a pattern of giving excessive discretion to federal officials. I noted last fall that the prior version of Graham-Cassidy gave federal bureaucrats at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) far too much power to determine the funding formula for doling out the nearly $1.2 trillion in block grant funds.
Thankfully, the new draft removes the "population adjustment factor" allowing CMS to rewrite the block grant formula unilaterally. But even as it took away CMS' power to alter the funding formula, new language on page 15 of the revised draft allows CMS to cancel states' block grant funds for "substantial noncompliance." That provision, coupled with the revised bill's lack of definition regarding "affordable" coverage and "high-risk individual" provides a future Democratic administration with two clear ways to hijack the block grant program.
For instance, a new administration could define "high-risk individual" so broadly that it would apply to virtually all Americans, subjecting them to the 18 costly coverage requirements. A new administration could also define "affordable" in such a manner—for instance, premiums may not exceed 5 percent of an individual's income—that states would have to subsidize insurance with sizable amounts of state funds, in addition to the federal dollars included in the block grant. Any state failing to comply with these edicts could see its entire block grant yanked for "substantial noncompliance" with the bureaucratically imposed guidelines.
It seems paradoxical to assert that a bill can be both too prescriptive, imposing far too many requirements on states that undermine the supposed goal of "state flexibility," and too vague, giving vast amounts of authority to federal bureaucrats. Yet somehow the section on "adequate and affordable health coverage" manages to do both.
Two New Required Uses of Block-Grant Funds
The prior Graham-Cassidy bill required states to spend at least 50 percent of their block grant funds assisting individuals with incomes between 50 and 300 percent of the federal poverty level. (In 2018, the federal poverty level stands at $25,100 for a family of four.) The revised bill includes two new requirements, included on page 19 of the text: States must spend at least 30 percent of block-grant funds on risk mitigation programs, ranging from high-risk pools to reinsurance mechanisms or other such options. States must also spend at least 50 percent of the funds on subsidizing private health insurance coverage.
Supporters of the bill would argue that these supposed "guardrails" will prevent states from subsidizing Medicaid coverage, or creating some other government-run health program. But as I noted last week, Obamacare has its own "guardrails" regarding state waivers, which undermine any attempt to deregulate insurance markets.
By adding these new "guardrails," Graham-Cassidy would essentially replicate Obamacare, albeit with slightly different policy objectives: "The Cassidy plan would give states the 'flexibility' to do what Bill Cassidy wants them to do, and only what Bill Cassidy wants them to do. That isn't flexibility at all."
Block Grant Reductions with Multiple Risk Pools
On Page 31, the bill includes new language requiring a reduction in block-grant funds, by a percentage not specified, for states electing to create multiple risk pools. Under current law, Section 1312(c) of Obamacare requires insurers to place all individual insurance market enrollees—whether they purchase coverage through the exchange or not—in a single risk pool.
States might want to create multiple risk pools as a way to lower premiums for healthy individuals, by putting high-risk individuals with chronic or costly conditions into a separate, more heavily subsidized, risk pool, similar to the high-risk pools that existed prior to Obamacare.
If a state elects to choose multiple risk pools and uses a "substantial portion" of its block grant to subsidize insurance with an actuarial value of under 50 percent, then the state would see an unspecified reduction in its block grant. This language contains many of the flaws of the other provisions described above: It nowhere defines what comprises a "substantial portion" of the block grant, and penalizes states that may choose to create multiple risk pools and subsidize only catastrophic insurance coverage, thus belying Graham-Cassidy's promise of "state flexibility."
3 New Requirements for State Waivers
The revised Graham-Cassidy text moves and alters language regarding state waivers of Obamacare's federal insurance requirements, and in so doing makes three substantive changes. (The original language started in the middle of page 143 of the bill; the new language begins on the top of page 42 of the revised bill.)
First, and perhaps most disturbingly, the revised bill requires the Department of Health and Human Services to waive Obamacare's insurance requirements for a state only if "such state establishes an equivalent requirement applicable to such coverage in such state." Taken literally, this provision could mean that states could "opt-out" of Obamacare's federal requirements if and only if they enshrine those exact same requirements in state law—rendering any supposed "flexibility" under Graham-Cassidy completely nonexistent.
Graham and Cassidy may not have meant to craft language with such a literal interpretation. They may mean to say, for instance, that a state can waive out of Obamacare's age-rating requirements (which prohibit insurers from charging older people more than three times what they charge younger people) if they establish a more permissive regime—for instance, five-to-one age rating—on the state level.
But taken literally, that's not what the current bill text says. That vague language raises serious questions about the authors' intent, and why they chose such unclear, and arguably sloppy, bill language.
Second, the section imposes two new requirements on states selecting multiple risk pools. As noted above, those states would have to comply with the 18 new requirements regarding "adequate and affordable" health coverage, and states creating multiple risk pools could see their block grant reduced as a result.
In addition, however, states must also guarantee that insurers offering coverage in one risk pool offer coverage in all of them. Moreover, premiums charged "by a health insurance issuer for the same health coverage offered in different risk pools in the state [may] not vary by more than 3 to 1."
The first requirement echoes the Consumer Freedom Amendment offered by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) last year. That amendment allowed insurers to offer plans that did not comply with Obamacare's requirements, so long as they continued to offer one Obamacare-compliant plan. The second requirement would effectively limit the extent to which insurers could charge individuals more on the basis of pre-existing conditions or health status.
Two Dozen (More) Reasons for State Concern
Both individually and collectively, these two dozen new requirements inserted into the most recent version of Graham-Cassidy present problems for conservatives. The myriad requirements would sharply limit the bill's ability to deliver lower premiums to consumers—one major goal of "repeal-and-replace" legislation.
More broadly, though, the revised bill drifts further away from any semblance of conservative objectives. While Graham-Cassidy purports to provide more flexibility to states, the revised bill would instead ensnare them in numerous requirements that would impede any attempt at innovation.
Like the proverbial Lilliputians who attempted to tie down Gulliver, the new bill looks to rob states of their ability to manage their own insurance markets and lower premiums for residents, one federal requirement at a time.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on June 6, 2018 January 3, 2019 Categories Costs, Coverage, Premiums, RegulationsTags Actuarial value, Affordability, Age rating, Annual and lifetime limits, Benefit mandates, Bill Cassidy, Bureaucrats, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Community rating, Contraception mandate, Department of Health and Human Services, Essential health benefits, Federalism, Graham-Cassidy, Guaranteed issue, Guardrails, High-risk pools, Lindsey Graham, Medicaid, Mental health parity, Pre-existing conditions, Preventive care, Public Health Service Act, Regulations, Repeal Obamacare, SCHIP, State flexibility, Ted Cruz, The Federalist, Waivers
Legislative Bulletin: Summary of Revised Graham-Cassidy Legislation
A PDF version of this document is available on the Texas Public Policy Foundation website.
Summary of CBO Score
On Monday evening, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a preliminary estimate of the Graham-Cassidy bill. CBO concluded that the bill would comply with reconciliation parameters—namely, that it would reduce the deficit by at least as much as the underlying reconciliation vehicle (the House-passed American Health Care Act), reduce the deficit by at least $1 billion in each of its two titles in its first ten years, and not increase the deficit overall in any of the four following decades.
Although it did not include any specific coverage or premium numbers, CBO did conclude that the bill would likely decrease coverage by millions compared to the current policy baseline. The report estimated that the bill's block grant would spend about $230 billion less than current law—a 10 percent reduction overall (an average 30 percent reduction for Medicaid expansion states, but an average 30 percent increase for non-expansion states). Moreover, CBO believes at least $150 billion in block grant funding would not be spent by the end of the ten-year budget window.
CBO believes that "most states would eventually make changes in the regulations for their non-group market in order to stabilize it and would use some funds from the block grants to facilitate those changes." Essentially, current insurance regulations mean that markets would become unstable without current law subsidies, such that states would use a combination of subsidies and changes in regulations to preserve market stability.
CBO believes that most Medicaid expansion states would attempt to use block grant funding to create Medicaid-like programs for their low-income residents. However, the analysis concludes that by 2026, those states' block grants would roughly equal the projected cost of their current Medicaid expansion—forcing them to choose between "provid[ing] similar benefits to people in a [Medicaid] alternative program and extend[ing] support to others" further up the income scale. In those cases, CBO believes "most of those states would then choose to provide little support to people in the non-group market because doing so effectively would be the more difficult task."
Overall, CBO believes that the bill would reduce insurance coverage, because of its repeal of the subsidies, Medicaid expansion, and the individual mandate. The budget office believes that states with high levels of coverage under Obamacare would not receive enough funds under the revised block grant to match their current coverage levels, while states with lower levels of coverage would spend the money slowly, in part because they lack the infrastructure (i.e., technology, etc.) to distribute subsidies easily. CBO also believes that employment-based coverage would increase under the bill, because some employers would respond to changes in the individual market by offering coverage to their workers.
With respect to the Medicaid reforms in the bill, CBO concludes that most "states would not have substantial additional flexibility" under the per capita caps. Some states with declining populations might choose the block grant option, but the grant "would not be attractive in most states experiencing population growth, as the fixed block grant would not be adjusted for such growth." States could reduce their spending by reducing provider payment rates; optional benefit categories; limiting eligibility; improving care delivery; or some combination of the approaches.
For the individual market, CBO expresses skepticism about the timelines in the bill. Specifically, its analysis found that states' initial options would "be limited," because implementing new health programs by 2020 would be "difficult:"
To establish its own system of subsidies for coverage in the nongroup market related to people's income, a state would have to enact legislation and create a new administrative infrastructure. A state would not be able to rely on any existing system for verifying eligibility or making payments. It would need to establish a new system for enrolling people in nongroup insurance, verify eligibility for tax credits or other subsidies, certify insurance as eligible for subsidies, and ultimately ensure that the payments were correct. Those steps would be challenging, particularly if the state chose to simultaneously change insurance market regulations.
While CBO believes that states that expanded Medicaid would be likely to create programs for populations currently eligible for subsidies (i.e., those households with incomes between one and four times poverty), it notes that such states "would be facing large reductions in funding compared with the amounts under current law and thus would have trouble paying for a new program or subsidies for those people."
CBO believes that without subsidies, and with current insurance regulations in place, a "death spiral" would occur, whereby premiums would gradually increase and insurers would drop out of markets. (However, "if a state required individuals to have insurance, some healthier people would enroll, and premiums would be lower.") To avoid this scenario, CBO believes that "most states would eventually modify various rules to help stabilize the non-group market," thereby increasing coverage take-up when compared to not doing so. However, "coverage for people with pre-existing conditions would be much more expensive in some of those states than under current law."
While widening age bands would "somewhat increase insurance coverage, on net," CBO notes that "insurance covering certain services not included in the scope of benefits to become more expensive—in some cases, extremely expensive." Moreover, some medically underwritten individuals (i.e., subject to premium changes based on health status) would become uninsured, while others would instead obtain employer coverage.
Finally, CBO estimated that the non-coverage provisions of the bill would increase the deficit by $22 billion over ten years. Specific estimates for those provisions are integrated into the summary below.
Summary of Changes Made
On Sunday evening, the bill's sponsors released revised text of their bill. Compared to the original draft, the revised bill:
Strikes language repealing sections of Obamacare related to eligibility determinations (likely to comply with the Senate's "Byrd rule" regarding budget reconciliation);
Changes the short-term "stability fund" to set aside 5 percent of funds for "low-density states," which some conservatives may view as a carve-out for certain states similar to that included in July's Better Care Reconciliation Act;
Re-writes waiver authority, but maintains (and arguably strengthens) language requiring states to "maintain access to adequate and affordable health insurance coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions," which some conservatives may view as imposing limiting conditions on states that wish to reform their insurance markets;
Requires states to certify that they will "ensure compliance" with sections of the Public Health Service Act relating to: 1) the under-26 mandate; 2) hospital stays following births; 3) mental health parity; 4) re-constructive surgery following mastectomies; and 5) genetic non-discrimination;
Strikes authority given to the Health and Human Services Secretary in several sections, and replaces it with authority given to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator;
Includes a new requirement that at least half of funds provided under the Obamacare replacement block grant must be used "to provide assistance" to households with family income between 50 and 300 percent of the poverty level;
Requires CMS Administrator to adjust block grant spending upward for a "low-density state" with per capita health care spending 20 percent higher than the national average, increasing allocation levels to match the higher health costs—a provision some conservatives may consider an earmark for specific states;
Imposes new requirement on CMS Administrator to notify states of their 2020 block grant allocations by November 1, 2019—a timeline that some may argue will give states far too little time to prepare and plan for major changes to their health systems;
Slows the transition to the new Obamacare replacement block grant formula outlined in the law, which now would not fully take effect until after 2026—even though the bill does not appropriate block grant funds for years after 2026;
Gives the Administrator the power not to make an annual adjustment for risk in the block grant;
Strikes the block grant's annual adjustment factor for coverage value;
Delays the block grant's state population adjustment factor from 2020 until 2022—but retains language giving the CMS Administrator to re-write the entire funding allocation based on this factor, which some conservatives may view as an unprecedented power grab by federal bureaucrats;
Re-writes rules re-allocating unspent block grant allocation funds;
Prohibits states from receiving more than a 25 percent year-on-year increase in their block grant allocations;
Makes other technical changes to the block grant formula;
Changes the formula for the $11 billion contingency fund provided to low-density and non-expansion states—25 percent ($2.75 billion) for low-density states, 50 percent ($5.5 billion) for non-Medicaid expansion states, and 25 percent ($2.75 billion) for Medicaid expansion states;
Includes a $750 million fund for "late-expanding" Medicaid states (those that did not expand Medicaid under Obamacare prior to December 31, 2016), which some conservatives may consider an earmark, and one that encourages states to embrace Obamacare's Medicaid expansion to the able-bodied;
Includes $500 million to allow pass-through funding under Section 1332 Obamacare waivers to continue for years 2019 through 2023 under the Obamacare replacement block grant;
Strikes language allowing for direct primary care to be purchased through Health Savings Accounts, and as a medical expense under the Internal Revenue Code;
Strikes language reducing American territories' Medicaid match from 55 percent to 50 percent;
Restores language originally in BCRA allowing for "late-expanding Medicaid states" to select a shorter period for their per capita caps—a provision that some conservatives may view as an undue incentive for certain states that expanded Medicaid under Obamacare;
Restores language originally in BCRA regarding reporting of data related to Medicaid per capita caps;
Strikes language delaying Medicaid per capita caps for certain "low-density states;"
Includes new language perpetually increasing Medicaid match rates on the two highest states with separate poverty guidelines issued for them in 2017—a provision that by definition includes only Alaska and Hawaii, which some conservatives may view as an inappropriate earmark;
Strikes language allowing all individuals to purchase Obamacare catastrophic coverage beginning in 2019;
Strikes language clarifying enforcement provisions, particularly regarding abortion;
Allows states to waive certain provisions related to insurance regulations, including 1) essential health benefits; 2) cost-sharing requirements; 3) actuarial value; 4) community rating; 5) preventive health services; and 6) single risk pool;
Requires states to describe its new insurance rules to the federal government, "except that in no case may an issuer vary premium rates on the basis of sex or on the basis of genetic information," a provision that some conservatives may view as less likely to subject the rules to legal challenges than the prior language; and
Retains language requiring each waiver participant to receive "a direct benefit" from federal funds, language that some conservatives may view as logistically problematic.
Full Summary of Bill (as Revised)
Last week, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) introduced a new health care bill. The legislation contains some components of the earlier Better Care Reconciliation Act (BCRA), considered by the Senate in July, with some key differences on funding streams. A full summary of the bill follows below, along with possible conservative concerns where applicable. Cost estimates are included below come from prior Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scores of similar or identical provisions in BCRA.
Of particular note: It is unclear whether this legislative language has been fully vetted with the Senate Parliamentarian. When the Senate considers budget reconciliation legislation—as it would do should the Graham-Cassidy measure receive floor consideration—the Parliamentarian advises whether provisions are budgetary in nature and can be included in the bill (which can pass with a 51-vote simple majority), and which provisions are not budgetary in nature and must be considered separately (i.e., require 60 votes to pass).
As the bill was released prior to issuance of a CBO score, it is entirely possible the Parliamentarian has not fully vetted this draft—which means provisions could change substantially, or even get stricken from the bill, due to procedural concerns as the process moves forward.
Revisions to Obamacare Subsidies: Beginning in 2018, changes the definition of a qualified health plan, to prohibit plans from covering abortion other than in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. Some conservatives may be concerned that this provision may eventually be eliminated under the provisions of the Senate's "Byrd rule." (For more information, see these two articles.)
Eliminates provisions that limit repayment of subsidies for years after 2017. Subsidy eligibility is based upon estimated income, with recipients required to reconcile their subsidies received with actual income during the year-end tax filing process. Current law limits the amount of excess subsidies households with incomes under 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL, $98,400 for a family of four in 2017) must pay. This provision would eliminate that limitation on repayments, which may result in fewer individuals taking up subsidies in the first place. Saves $11.7 billion over ten years—$8.5 billion in spending, and $3.2 billion in revenue.
Repeals the subsidy regime entirely after December 31, 2019.
Small Business Tax Credit: Repeals Obamacare's small business tax credit, effective in 2020. Disallows the small business tax credit beginning in 2018 for any plan that offers coverage of abortion, except in the case of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother—which, as noted above, some conservatives may believe will be stricken during the Senate's "Byrd rule" review. Saves $6 billion over ten years.
Individual and Employer Mandates: Sets the individual and employer mandate penalties to zero, for all years after December 31, 2015. The individual mandate provision cuts taxes by $38 billion, and the employer mandate provision cuts taxes by $171 billion, both over ten years.
Stability Fund: Creates two state-based funds intended to stabilize insurance markets—the first giving funds directly to insurers, and the second giving funds to states. The first would appropriate $10 billion each for 2018 and 2019, and $15 billion for 2020, ($35 billion total) to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to "fund arrangements with health insurance issuers to address coverage and access disruption and respond to urgent health care needs within States." Instructs the CMS Administrator to "determine an appropriate procedure for providing and distributing funds." Does not require a state match for receipt of stability funds. Some conservatives may be concerned this provision provides excessive authority to unelected bureaucrats to distribute $35 billion in federal funds as they see fit.
Includes new language setting aside 5 percent of stability fund dollars for "low-density states"—a provision which some conservatives may oppose as an earmark for Alaska and other similar states.
Market-Based Health Care Grant Program: Creates a longer-term stability fund for states with a total of $1.176 trillion in federal funding from 2020 through 2026—$146 billion in 2020 and 2021, $157 billion in 2022, $168 billion in 2023, $179 billion in 2024, and $190 billion in 2025 and 2026. Eliminates BCRA provisions requiring a state match. States could keep their allotments for two years, but unspent funds after that point could be re-allocated to other states. However, all funds would have to be spent by December 31, 2026.
Expands BCRA criteria for appropriate use of funds by states, to include assistance for purchasing individual insurance, and "provid[ing] health insurance coverage for individuals who are eligible for" Medicaid, as well as the prior eligible uses under BCRA: to provide financial assistance to high-risk individuals, including by reducing premium costs, "help stabilize premiums and promote state health insurance market participation and choice," provide payments to health care providers, or reduce cost-sharing.
However, states may spend no more than 15 percent of their resources on the Medicaid population (or up to 20 percent if the state applies for a waiver, and the Department of Health and Human Services concludes that the state is using its funds "to supplement, and not supplant," the state Medicaid match). In addition, states must spend at least half of their funds on "provid[ing] assistance" to families with incomes between 50 and 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Some conservatives may believe these restrictions belie the bill's purported goal of giving states freedom and flexibility to spend the funds as they see fit.
Some conservatives may be concerned that, by doling out nearly $1.2 trillion in spending, the bill does not repeal Obamacare, so much as it redistributes Obamacare funds from "blue states" to "red states," per the formulae described below. Some conservatives may also be concerned that the bill creates a funding cliff—with spending dropping from $190 billion in 2026 to $0 in 2027—that will leave an impetus for future Congresses to spend massive new amounts of money in the future.
Grant Formula: Sets a complex formula for determining state grant allocations, tied to the overall funding a state received for Medicaid expansion, the basic health program under Obamacare, and premium and cost-sharing subsidies provided to individuals in insurance Exchanges. Permits states to select any four consecutive fiscal quarters between September 30, 2013 and January 1, 2018 to establish the base period. (The bill sponsors have additional information regarding the formula calculations here.)
Intends to equalize grant amounts, with a phase-in of the new methodology for years 2021 through 2026. Ideally, the bill would set funding to a state's number of low-income individuals when compared to the number of low-income individuals nationwide. Defines the term "low-income individuals" to include those with incomes between 50 and 138 percent of the federal poverty level (45-133% FPL, plus a 5 percent income disregard created by Obamacare). In 2017, those numbers total $12,300-$33,948 for a family of four.
Adjusts state allocations (as determined above) according to additional factors:
Risk Adjustment: The bill would phase in risk adjustment over four years (between 2023 and 2026), and limit the risk adjustment modification to no more than 10 percent of the overall allotment. Risk adjustment would be based on clinical risk factors for low-income individuals (as defined above). The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator could cancel the risk adjustment factor in the absence of sufficient data.
Population Adjustment: Permits (but does not require) the Administrator to adjust allocations for years after 2022 according to a population adjustment factor. Requires CMS to "develop a state specific population adjustment factor that accounts for legitimate factors that impact the health care expenditures in a state"—such as demographics, wage rates, income levels, etc.—but as noted above, does not require CMS to adjust allocations based upon those factors.
Notwithstanding the above, states could not receive a year-on-year increase in funding of more than 25 percent.
Requires the Administrator to adjust block grant spending upward for a "low-density state" with per capita health care spending 20 percent higher than the national average, increasing allocation levels to match the higher health costs—a provision some conservatives may consider an inappropriate earmark for Alaska. Imposes new requirement on the Administrator to notify states of their 2020 block grant allocations by November 1, 2019—a timeline that some may argue will give states far too little time to prepare and plan for major changes to their health systems.
Some conservatives may be concerned that, despite the admirable intent to equalize funding between high-spending and low-spending states, the bill gives excessive discretion to unelected bureaucrats in Washington to determine the funding formulae. Some conservatives may instead support repealing all of Obamacare, and allowing states to decide for themselves what they wish to put in its place, rather than doling out federal funds from Washington. Finally, some may question why the bill's formula criteria focus so heavily on individuals with incomes between 50-138 percent FPL, to the potential exclusion of individuals and households with slightly higher or lower incomes.
Provides $750 million for "late-expanding" Medicaid states—those that did not expand Medicaid under Obamacare prior to December 31, 2015—which some conservatives may consider an earmark, one that encourages states that have embraced Obamacare's Medicaid expansion to the able-bodied. Also includes $500 million to allow pass-through funding under Section 1332 Obamacare waivers to continue for years 2019 through 2023.
Grant Application: Requires states applying for grant funds to outline the intended uses of same. Specifically, the state must describe how it "shall maintain access to adequate and affordable health insurance coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions," along with "such other information as necessary for the Administrator to carry out this subsection"—language that could be used by a future Democratic Administration, or federal courts, to undermine the waiver program's intent.
Explicitly requires states to "ensure compliance" with several federal insurance mandates:
Coverage of "dependents" under age 26;
Hospital stays following deliveries;
Mental health parity;
Reconstructive surgery following mastectomies; and
Genetic non-discrimination.
Some conservatives may note that these retained federal mandates belie the notion of state flexibility promised by the legislation.
Contingency Fund: Appropriates a total of $11 billion—$6 billion for calendar year 2020, and $5 billion for calendar 2021—for a contingency fund for certain states. Half of the funding ($5.5 billion total) would go towards states that had not expanded Medicaid as of September 1, 2017, with the remaining one-quarter ($2.75 billion) going towards "low-density states"—those with a population density of fewer than 15 individuals per square mile—and another one-quarter ($2.75 billion) going towards states that did expand Medicaid.
Implementation Fund: Provides $2 billion to implement programs under the bill. Costs $2 billion over ten years.
Repeal of Some Obamacare Taxes: Repeals some Obamacare taxes:
Restrictions on use of Health Savings Accounts and Flexible Spending Arrangements to pay for over-the-counter medications, effective January 1, 2017, lowering revenues by $5.6 billion;
Increased penalties on non-health care uses of Health Savings Account dollars, effective January 1, 2017, lowering revenues by $100 million;
Medical device tax, effective January 1, 2018, lowering revenues by $19.6 billion; and
Elimination of deduction for employers who receive a subsidy from Medicare for offering retiree prescription drug coverage, effective January 1, 2017, lowering revenues by $1.8 billion.
Some conservatives may be concerned that the bill barely attempts to reduce revenues, repealing only the smallest taxes in Obamacare—and the ones that corporate lobbyists care most about (e.g., medical device tax and retiree prescription drug coverage provision).
Health Savings Accounts: Increases contribution limits to HSAs, raising them from the current $3,400 for individuals and $6,750 for families in 2017 to the out-of-pocket maximum amounts (currently $6,550 for an individual and $13,100 for a family), effective January 2018. Allows both spouses to make catch-up contributions to the same Health Savings Account. Permits individuals who take up to 60 days to establish an HSA upon enrolling in HSA-eligible coverage to be reimbursed from their account for medical expenses. Lowers revenues by a total of $19.2 billion over ten years.
Allows for Health Savings Account funds to be used for the purchase of high-deductible health plans, but only to the extent that such insurance was not purchased on a tax-preferred basis (i.e., through the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance, or through Obamacare insurance subsidies).
Allows HSA dollars to be used to reimburse expenses for "dependents" under age 27, effectively extending the "under-26" provisions of Obamacare to Health Savings Accounts. Prohibits HSA-qualified high deductible health plans from covering abortions, other than in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother—an effective prohibition on the use of HSA funds to purchase plans that cover abortion, but one that the Senate Parliamentarian may advise does not comport with procedural restrictions on budget reconciliation bills. No separate cost estimate provided for the revenue reduction associated with allowing HSA dollars to be used to pay for insurance premiums.
Federal Payments to States: Imposes a one-year ban on federal funds flowing to certain entities. This provision would have the effect of preventing Medicaid funding of certain medical providers, including Planned Parenthood, so long as Planned Parenthood provides for abortions (except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother). CBO believes this provision would save a total of $225 million in Medicaid spending, while increasing spending by $79 million over a decade, because 15 percent of Planned Parenthood clients would lose access to services, increasing the number of births in the Medicaid program by several thousand. Saves $146 million over ten years.
Medicaid Expansion: Phases out Obamacare's Medicaid expansion to the able-bodied, effective January 1, 2020. After such date, only members of Indian tribes who reside in states that had expanded Medicaid—and who were eligible on December 31, 2019—would qualify for Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. Indians could remain on the Medicaid expansion, but only if they do not have a break in eligibility (i.e., the program would be frozen to new enrollees on January 1, 2020).
Repeals the enhanced federal match (currently 95 percent, declining slightly to 90 percent) associated with Medicaid expansion, effective in 2020. Also repeals provisions regarding the Community First Choice Option, eliminating a six percent increase in the Medicaid match rate for some home and community-based services. Saves $19.3 billion over ten years.
Retroactive Eligibility: Effective October 2017, restricts retroactive eligibility in Medicaid from three months to two months. These changes would NOT apply to aged, blind, or disabled populations, who would still qualify for three months of retroactive eligibility. Saves $800 million over ten years.
Eligibility Re-Determinations: Permits—but unlike the House bill, does not require—states, beginning October 1, 2017, to re-determine eligibility for individuals qualifying for Medicaid on the basis of income every six months, or at shorter intervals. Provides a five percentage point increase in the federal match rate for states that elect this option. No separate budgetary impact noted; included in larger estimate of coverage provisions.
Work Requirements: Permits (but does not require) states to, beginning October 1, 2017, impose work requirements on "non-disabled, non-elderly, non-pregnant" beneficiaries. States can determine the length of time for such work requirements. Provides a five percentage point increase in the federal match for state expenses attributable to activities implementing the work requirements.
States may not impose requirements on pregnant women (through 60 days after birth); children under age 19; the sole parent of a child under age 6, or sole parent or caretaker of a child with disabilities; or a married individual or head of household under age 20 who "maintains satisfactory attendance at secondary school or equivalent," or participates in vocational education. Adds to existing exemptions (drafted in BCRA) provisions exempting those in inpatient or intensive outpatient substance abuse treatment and full-time students from Medicaid work requirements. No separate budgetary impact noted; included in larger estimate of coverage provisions.
Provider Taxes: Reduces permissible Medicaid provider taxes from 6 percent under current law to 5.6 percent in fiscal year 2021, 5.2 percent in fiscal year 2022, 4.8 percent in fiscal year 2023, 4.4 percent in fiscal year 2024, and 4 percent in fiscal year 2025 and future fiscal years—a change from BCRA, which reduced provider taxes to 5 percent in 2025 (0.2 percent reduction per year, as opposed to 0.4 percent under the Graham-Cassidy bill). Some conservatives may view provider taxes as essentially "money laundering"—a game in which states engage in shell transactions solely designed to increase the federal share of Medicaid funding and reduce states' share. More information can be found here. CBO believes states would probably reduce their spending in response to the loss of provider tax revenue, resulting in lower spending by the federal government. Saves $13 billion over ten years.
Medicaid Per Capita Caps: Creates a system of per capita spending caps for federal spending on Medicaid, beginning in fiscal year 2020. States that exceed their caps would have their federal match reduced in the following fiscal year.
The cap would include all spending on medical care provided through the Medicaid program, with the exception of DSH payments and Medicare cost-sharing paid for dual eligibles (individuals eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare).
While the cap would take effect in fiscal year 2020, states could choose their "base period" based on any eight consecutive quarters of expenditures between October 1, 2013 and June 30, 2017. The CMS Administrator would have authority to make adjustments to relevant data if she believes a state attempted to "game" the look-back period. Late-expanding Medicaid states could choose a shorter period (but not fewer than four) quarters as their "base period" for determining per capita caps—a provision that some conservatives may view as improperly incentivizing states that decided to expand Medicaid to the able-bodied.
Creates four classes of beneficiaries for whom the caps would apply: 1) elderly individuals over age 65; 2) blind and disabled beneficiaries; 3) children under age 19; and 4) all other non-disabled, non-elderly, non-expansion adults (e.g., pregnant women, parents, etc.). Excludes State Children's Health Insurance Plan enrollees, Indian Health Service participants, breast and cervical cancer services eligible individuals, and certain other partial benefit enrollees from the per capita caps. Exempts declared public health emergencies from the Medicaid per capita caps—based on an increase in beneficiaries' average expenses due to such emergency—but such exemption may not exceed $5 billion.
For years before fiscal year 2025, indexes the caps to medical inflation for children and all other non-expansion enrollees, with the caps rising by medical inflation plus one percentage point for aged, blind, and disabled beneficiaries. Beginning in fiscal year 2025, indexes the caps to overall inflation for children and non-expansion enrollees, with the caps rising by medical inflation for aged, blind, and disabled beneficiaries—a change from BCRA, which set the caps at overall inflation for all enrollees beginning in 2025.
Eliminates provisions in the House bill regarding "required expenditures by certain political subdivisions," which some had derided as a parochial New York-related provision.
Provides a provision—not included in the House bill—for effectively re-basing the per capita caps. Allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services to increase the caps by between 0.5% and 3% (a change from BCRA, which set a 2% maximum increase) for low-spending states (defined as having per capita expenditures 25% below the national median), and lower the caps by between 0.5% and 2% (unchanged from BCRA) for high-spending states (with per capita expenditures 25% above the national median). The Secretary may only implement this provision in a budget-neutral manner, i.e., one that does not increase the deficit. However, this re-basing provision shall NOT apply to any state with a population density of under 15 individuals per square mile.
Requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reduce states' annual growth rate by one percent for any year in which that state "fails to satisfactorily submit data" regarding its Medicaid program. Permits HHS to adjust cap amounts to reflect data errors, based on an appeal by the state, increasing cap levels by no more than two percent. Requires new state reporting on inpatient psychiatric hospital services and children with complex medical conditions. Requires the HHS Inspector General to audit each state's spending at least every three years.
For the period including calendar quarters beginning on October 1, 2017 through October 1, 2019, increases the federal Medicaid match for certain state expenditures to improve data recording, including a 100 percent match in some instances.
Home and Community-Based Services: Creates a four-year, $8 billion demonstration project from 2020 through 2023 to expand home- and community-based service payment adjustments in Medicaid, with such payment adjustments eligible for a 100 percent federal match. The 15 states with the lowest population density would be given priority for funds.
Medicaid Block Grants: Creates a Medicaid block grant, called the "Medicaid Flexibility Program," beginning in Fiscal Year 2020. Requires interested states to submit an application providing a proposed packet of services, a commitment to submit relevant data (including health quality measures and clinical data), and a statement of program goals. Requires public notice-and-comment periods at both the state and federal levels.
The amount of the block grant would total the regular federal match rate, multiplied by the target per capita spending amounts (as calculated above), multiplied by the number of expected enrollees (adjusted forward based on the estimated increase in population for the state, per Census Bureau estimates). In future years, the block grant would be increased by general inflation.
Prohibits states from increasing their base year block grant population beyond 2016 levels, adjusted for population growth, plus an additional three percentage points. This provision is likely designed to prevent states from "packing" their Medicaid programs full of beneficiaries immediately prior to a block grant's implementation, solely to achieve higher federal payments.
In a change from BCRA, the bill removes language permitting states to roll over block grant payments from year to year—a move that some conservatives may view as antithetical to the flexibility intended by a block grant, and biasing states away from this model. Reduces federal payments for the following year in the case of states that fail to meet their maintenance of effort spending requirements, and permits the HHS Secretary to make reductions in the case of a state's non-compliance. Requires the Secretary to publish block grant amounts for every state every year, regardless of whether or not the state elects the block grant option.
Permits block grants for a program period of five fiscal years, subject to renewal; plans with "no significant changes" would not have to re-submit an application for their block grants. Permits a state to terminate the block grant, but only if the state "has in place an appropriate transition plan approved by the Secretary."
Imposes a series of conditions on Medicaid block grants, requiring coverage for all mandatory populations identified in the Medicaid statute, and use of the Modified Adjusted Gross Income (MAGI) standard for determining eligibility. Includes 14 separate categories of services that states must cover for mandatory populations under the block grant. Requires benefits to have an actuarial value (coverage of average health expenses) of at least 95 percent of the benchmark coverage options in place prior to Obamacare. Permits states to determine the amount, duration, and scope of benefits within the parameters listed above.
Applies mental health parity provisions to the Medicaid block grant, and extends the Medicaid rebate program to any outpatient drugs covered under same. Permits states to impose premiums, deductibles, or other cost-sharing, provided such efforts do not exceed 5 percent of a family's income in any given year.
Requires participating states to have simplified enrollment processes, coordinate with insurance Exchanges, and "establish a fair process" for individuals to appeal adverse eligibility determinations. Allows for modification of the Medicaid block grant during declared public health emergencies—based on an increase in beneficiaries' average expenses due to such emergency.
Exempts states from per capita caps, waivers, state plan amendments, and other provisions of Title XIX of the Social Security Act while participating in Medicaid block grants.
Performance Bonus Payments: Provides an $8 billion pool for bonus payments to state Medicaid and SCHIP programs for Fiscal Years 2023 through 2026. Allows the Secretary to increase federal matching rates for states that 1) have lower than expected expenses under the per capita caps and 2) report applicable quality measures, and have a plan to use the additional funds on quality improvement. While noting the goal of reducing health costs through quality improvement, and incentives for same, some conservatives may be concerned that this provision—as with others in the bill—gives near-blanket authority to the HHS Secretary to control the program's parameters, power that conservatives believe properly resides outside Washington—and power that a future Democratic Administration could use to contravene conservative objectives. CBO believes that only some states will meet the performance criteria, leading some of the money not to be spent between now and 2026. Costs $3 billion over ten years.
Inpatient Psychiatric Services: Provides for optional state Medicaid coverage of inpatient psychiatric services for individuals over 21 and under 65 years of age. (Current law permits coverage of such services for individuals under age 21.) Such coverage would not exceed 30 days in any month or 90 days in any calendar year. In order to receive such assistance, the state must maintain its number of licensed psychiatric beds as of the date of enactment, and maintain current levels of funding for inpatient services and outpatient psychiatric services. Provides a lower (i.e., 50 percent) match for such services, furnished on or after October 1, 2018; however, in a change from BCRA, allows for higher federal match rates for certain services and individuals to continue if they were in effect prior to September 30, 2018. No separate budgetary impact noted; included in larger estimate of coverage provisions.
Medicaid and Indian Health Service: Makes a state's expenses on behalf of Indians eligible for a 100 percent match, irrespective of the source of those services. Current law provides for a 100 percent match only for services provided at an Indian Health Service center. Costs $3.5 billion over ten years.
Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) Payments: Adjusts reductions in DSH payments to reflect shortfalls in funding for the state grant program described above. For fiscal years 2021 through 2025, states receiving grant allocations that do not keep up with medical inflation will have their DSH reductions reduced or eliminated; in fiscal year 2026, states with grant shortfalls will have their DSH payments increased. Costs $17.9 billion over ten years.
High-Poverty States: Provides for a permanent increase in the federal Medicaid match for two states, based on poverty guidelines established for 2017. Specifically, provides for a 25 percent increase to the state with the "highest separate poverty guideline for 2017," and a 15 percent increase to the state with the "second highest separate poverty guideline for 2017"—provisions that by definition would apply only to Alaska and Hawaii, respectively. Some conservatives may be concerned first that these provisions represent inappropriate earmarks, and further that they would change federal spending in perpetuity based on poverty determinations made for a single year. Costs $7.2 billion over ten years.
Prevention and Public Health Fund: Eliminates funding for the Obamacare prevention "slush fund," and rescinds all unobligated balances, beginning in Fiscal Year 2019. Saves $7.9 billion over ten years.
Community Health Centers: Increases funding for community health centers by $422 million for Fiscal Year 2018—money intended to offset reductions in spending on Planned Parenthood affiliates (see "Federal Payments to States" above). Spends $422 million over ten years.
Cost-Sharing Subsidies: Repeals Obamacare's cost-sharing subsidies, effective December 31, 2019, and does not appropriate funds for cost-sharing subsidy claims for plan years through 2019. The House of Representatives filed suit against the Obama Administration (House v. Burwell) alleging the Administration acted unconstitutionally in spending funds on the cost-sharing subsidies without an explicit appropriation from Congress. The case is currently on hold pending settlement discussions between the Trump Administration and the House.
Grant Conditions: Sets additional conditions for the grant program established in Title I of the bill. States may submit applications waiving certain provisions currently in federal statute:
Essential health benefits;
Cost-sharing requirements;
Actuarial value requirements, including plan metal tiers (e.g., bronze, silver, gold, and platinum);
Community rating—although states may not be able to vary premiums based on health status, due to contradictory language in this section;
Preventive health services; and
Single risk pool.
Requires states to submit their revised rules to the federal government, "except that in no case may an issuer vary premium rates on the basis of sex or on the basis of genetic information." Some conservatives may view this language as less likely to spark new legal challenges than the prior wording, which prohibited insurance changes based on "membership in a protected class." However, some conservatives may also find that the mutually contradictory provisions over whether and how states can vary insurance rates may spark other legal challenges.
The waivers only apply to an insurer receiving funding under the state program, and "to an individual who is receiving a direct benefit" from the grant—which does not include reinsurance. In other words, each individual must receive some direct subsidy, rather than just general benefits derived from the broader insurance pool. Some conservatives may be concerned that, by tying waiver of regulations so closely to receipt of federal grant funds, this provision would essentially provide limited regulatory relief. Furthermore, such limited relief would require states to accept federal funding largely adjudicated and doled out by unelected bureaucrats.
Some conservatives may be concerned that, while well-intentioned, these provisions do not represent a true attempt at federalism—one which would repeal all of Obamacare's regulations and devolve health insurance oversight back to the states. It remains unclear whether any states would actually waive Obamacare regulations under the bill; if a state chooses not to do so, all of the law's costly mandates will remain in place there, leaving Obamacare as the default option.
Some conservatives may view provisions requiring anyone to whom a waiver applies to receive federal grant funding as the epitome of moral hazard—ensuring that individuals who go through health underwriting will receive federal subsidies, no matter their level of wealth or personal circumstances. By requiring states to subsidize bad actors—for instance, an individual making $250,000 who knowingly went without health coverage for years—with federal taxpayer dollars, the bill could actually raise health insurance premiums, not lower them. Moreover, some conservatives may be concerned that—because the grant program funding ends in 2027, and because all individuals subject to waivers must receive grant funding—the waiver program will effectively end in 2027, absent a new infusion of taxpayer dollars.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on September 26, 2017 January 1, 2019 Categories Costs, Coverage, Jobs, Medicaid and SCHIP, Medicare, Premiums, Regulations, TaxesTags "Repeal and Replace", 21st Century Cures Act, Abortion, Accounting gimmick, Actuarial value, Adverse selection, Age rating, Alaska, American Health Care Act, Backroom deals, Bailouts, Benefit mandates, Better Care Reconciliation Act, Block grant, Catastrophic plans, Census Bureau, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Community health centers, Community rating, Congressional Budget Office, Continuous coverage, Cost estimates, Cost-sharing, Cost-sharing reductions, Coverage estimates, Deductibles, Department of Veterans Affairs, Device tax, Direct primary care, Disproportionate Share Hospitals, Employer mandate, Employer-provided health coverage, Enrollment freeze, ERISA, Essential health benefits, Exchange subsidies, Family "glitch", Flexible Spending Arrangements, Fraud, Full repeal, Genetic non-discrimination, Government spending, Graham-Cassidy, Grandmothered plans, Guaranteed issue, Hawaii, Health Reimbursement Arrangements, Health Savings Accounts, Home and community-based services, House v. Burwell, Hyde Amendment, Immigration, Implementation failure, Indian Health Service, Individual mandate, Inspector General, Insurer tax, Labor supply, Legislative Bulletin, Lobbyists, Louisiana, MAGI, Medicaid expansion, Medical loss ratio, Mental health parity, Moral hazard, Opioid funding, Out-of-pocket maximums, Per capita cap, Planned Parenthood, Pre-existing conditions, Premium increases, Premiums, Prevention and Public Health Fund, Preventive care, Provider taxes, Reconciliation, Reinsurance, Risk adjustment, SCHIP, Secondary indexing, Senate Finance Committee, Senate HELP Committee, Senate parliamentarian, Small business tax credit, Special enrollment periods, Stability Fund, State flexibility, Subsidy cliffs, Supreme Court case, Tax credits, Tax treatment of health insurance, Taxes, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Under-26 mandate, Uninsured, Verification, Waivers, Work disincentives, Work requirements
How Graham-Cassidy's Funding Formula Gives Washington Unprecedented Power
The past several days have seen competing analyses over the block-grant funding formula proposed in health-care legislation by Sens. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) and Bill Cassidy (R-LA). The bill's sponsors have one set of spreadsheets showing the potential allocation of funds to states under their plan, the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has another, and consultants at Avalere (funded in this case by the liberal Center for American Progress) have a third analysis quantifying which states would gain or lose under the bill's funding formula.
So who's right? Which states will end up the proverbial winners and losers under the Graham-Cassidy bill? The answer is simple: Nope.
Policy-makers arguing over minute intricacies of the funding formula miss the fact that the bill gives the executive virtually unlimited discretion to change that funding formula. Whether the statutory formula benefits a given state could well matter less than what federal bureaucrats want to do to tilt the formula in favor of, or against, that state.
While the bill's proponents claim the legislation will increase state authority, in reality the bill gives unelected bureaucrats the power to distribute nearly $1.2 trillion in taxpayer dollars unilaterally. In so doing, the bill concentrates rather than diminishes Washington's power—and could set the course for the "mother of all backroom deals" to pass the legislation.
A Complicated Spending Formula
To start with, the bill repeals Obamacare's Medicaid expansion and exchange subsidies, effective in January 2020. It then replaces those two programs with a block grant totaling $1.176 trillion from 2020 through 2026. All else equal, this set of actions would disadvantage states that expanded Medicaid, because the Medicaid expansion money currently being received by 31 states (plus the District of Columbia) would be re-distributed among all 50 states.
From there the formula gets more complicated. (You can read the sponsors' description of it here.) The bill attempts to equalize per-person funding among all states by 2026, with funds tied to a state's number of individuals with incomes between 50 percent and 138 percent of the poverty level.
The bill would adjust the funding formula to reflect both risk adjustment and actuarial value—in laymen's terms, it would work to ensure that states with sicker-than-average individuals get more funding, and that states that choose to offer richer-than-average benefits don't draw down excess federal funds as a result. Those adjustments would phase in over several years, with the goal of reaching per-person parity among states by 2026.
Thus far, the formula carries a logic to it. For years conservatives have complained that Medicaid's match rate formula gives wealthy states more incentives to draw down federal funds than poor states, and that rich states like New York and New Jersey have received a disproportionate share of Medicaid funds as a result. The bill's sponsors claim that the bill "treats all Americans the same no matter where they live."
Would that that claim were true. Page 30 of the bill demonstrates otherwise.
The Trillion-Dollar Loophole
Page 30 of the Graham-Cassidy bill, which creates a "state specific population adjustment factor," completely undermines the rest of the bill's funding formula:
IN GENERAL.—For calendar years after 2020, the Secretary may adjust the amount determined for a State for a year under subparagraph (B) or (C) and adjusted under subparagraphs (D) and (E) according to a population adjustment factor developed by the Secretary.
In other words, if the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) doesn't like the funding formula, he can change it however he likes. That's a trillion-dollar loophole that leaves HHS bureaucrats with the ultimate say over how much money states will receive.
The bill does say that HHS must develop "legitimate factors" that affect state health expenditures—so it can't allocate funding based on, say, the number of people who own red socks in Alabama. But beyond those two words, pretty much anything goes.
The bill says the "legitimate factors" for population adjustment "may include state demographics, wage rates, [and] income levels," but it doesn't limit the factors to those three characteristics—and it doesn't limit the amount that HHS can adjust the funding formula to reflect those characteristics either. If a hurricane like Harvey struck Texas three years from now, Secretary Tom Price would be within his rights under the bill to cite a public health emergency and dedicate 100 percent of the federal grant funds—which total $146 billion in 2020—solely to Texas.
That scenario seems unlikely, but it shows the massive and virtually unprecedented power HHS would have under the bill to control more than $1 trillion in federal spending by executive fiat. To top it off, pages 6 through 8 of the bill create a separate pot of $25 billion — $10 billion for 2019 and $15 billion for 2020 — and tell the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator to "determine an appropriate procedure" for allocating the funds. That's another blank check of $25,000,000,000 in taxpayer funds, given to federal bureaucrats to spend as they see fit.
In an op-ed over the weekend, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) rightly criticized Obamacare for "put[ting] enormous power in the hands of a few people in Washington." But the Graham-Cassidy proposal he endorses would imbue federal bureaucrats with an authority over spending the likes of which Obamacare never even contemplated.
Backroom Deals Ahead
With an unprecedented level of authority granted to federal bureaucrats to determine how much funding states receive, you can easily guess what's coming next. Unnamed Senate staffers already invoked strip-club terminology in July, claiming they would "make it rain" on moderates with hundreds of billions of dollars in "candy." Under the current version of the bill, HHS staff now have virtual carte blanche to promise all sorts of "state specific population adjustment factors" to influence the votes of wavering senators.
The potential for even more backroom deals than the prior versions of "repeal-and-replace" demonstrates the pernicious power that trillions of dollars in spending delivers to Washington. Draining the swamp shouldn't involve distributing money from Washington out to states, whether under a simple formula or executive discretion. It should involve eliminating Washington's role in doling out money entirely.
That's what Republicans promised when they said they would repeal Obamacare—to end the law's spending, not work on "spreading the wealth around." That's what they should deliver.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on September 20, 2017 January 1, 2019 Categories Coverage, Medicaid and SCHIP, Premiums, RegulationsTags Actuarial value, Avalere Health, Backroom deals, Bill Cassidy, Bureaucrats, Center for American Progress, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Department of Health and Human Services, Graham-Cassidy, Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, Medicaid expansion, New Jersey, New York, Risk adjustment, Texas, The Federalist, Tom Price, Transparency
Legislative Bulletin: Summary of Graham-Cassidy Health Care Bill
Eliminates provisions that limit repayment of subsidies for years after 2017. Subsidy eligibility is based upon estimated income, with recipients required to reconcile their subsidies received with actual income during the year-end tax filing process. Current law limits the amount of excess subsidies households with incomes under 400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL, $98,400 for a family of four in 2017) must pay. This provision would eliminate that limitation on repayments, which may result in fewer individuals taking up subsidies in the first place.
Eliminates language in BCRA requiring CMS to reserve one percent of fund monies "for providing and distributing funds to health insurance issuers in states where the cost of insurance premiums are at least 75 percent higher than the national average"—a provision which some conservatives opposed as an earmark for Alaska.
Expands BCRA criteria for appropriate use of funds by states, to include assistance for purchasing individual insurance, and "provid[ing] health insurance coverage for individuals who are eligible for" Medicaid, as well as the prior eligible uses under BCRA: to provide financial assistance to high-risk individuals, including by reducing premium costs, "help stabilize premiums and promote state health insurance market participation and choice," provide payments to health care providers, or reduce cost-sharing. However, states may spend no more than 15 percent of their resources on the Medicaid population (or up to 20 percent if the state applies for a waiver, and the Department of Health and Human Services concludes that the state is using its funds "to supplement, and not supplant," the state Medicaid match)—a restriction that some may believe belies the bill's purported goal of giving states freedom and flexibility to spend the funds as they see fit.
Intends to equalize grant amounts by 2026, with a phase-in of the new methodology for years 2021 and 2025. Specifically, the bill would by 2026 set funding to a state's number of low-income individuals when compared to the number of low-income individuals nationwide. Defines the term "low-income individuals" to include those with incomes between 50 and 138 percent of the federal poverty level (45-133% FPL, plus a 5 percent income disregard created by Obamacare). In 2017, those numbers total $12,300-$33,948 for a family of four.
Adjusts state allocations (as determined above) according to three additional factors:
Risk Adjustment: The bill would phase in risk adjustment over four years (between 2021 and 2024), and limit the risk adjustment modification to no more than 10 percent of the overall allotment. Risk adjustment would be based on clinical risk factors for low-income individuals (as defined above).
Coverage Value: The coverage value adjustment would phase in over four years (between 2024 and 2027), based on whether the average actuarial value (percentage of expected health expenses paid) of coverage for low-income individuals (as defined above) in a given state exceeded the "lowest possible actuarial value of health benefits" satisfying State Children's Health Insurance Program benefit requirements.
Population Adjustment: Permits (but does not require) the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to adjust allocations according to a population adjustment factor. Requires HHS to "develop a state specific population adjustment factor that accounts for legitimate factors that impact the health care expenditures in a state"—such as demographics, wage rates, income levels, etc.—but as noted above, does not require HHS to adjust allocations based upon those factors.
Waivers: In conjunction with the health care grant program above, allows (but does not require) states to waive certain regulatory requirements. Specifically, states could waive any provision that:
Restricts criteria for insurers to vary premiums on the individual and small group markets, "except that a health insurance issuer may not vary premium rates based on an individual's sex or membership in a protected class under the Constitution of the United States;"
Prevents premium contributions from varying "on the basis of any health status-related factor" in the individual and small group markets;
Requires coverage of certain benefits in the individual and small group markets; and
Requires insurers in the individual and small group markets to offer rebates to enrollees if their spending fails to meet certain limits (i.e., a medical loss ratio requirement).
To receive the waiver, the state must describe how it "intends to maintain access to adequate and affordable health insurance coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions," along with "such other information as necessary for the Administrator to carry out this subsection"—language that could be used by a future Democratic Administration to undermine the waiver program's intent. States can only waive federal statutory requirements enacted after January 1, 2009—i.e., under the Obama Administration.
Moreover, any provision waived "shall only be waived with respect to health insurance coverage" provided by an insurer receiving funding under the state program—and "to an individual who is receiving a direct benefit (including reduced premium costs or reduced out-of-pocket costs) under a state program that is funded by a grant under this subsection." Some conservatives may be concerned that, by tying waiver of regulations so closely to receipt of federal grant funds, this provision would essentially provide limited regulatory relief. Furthermore, such limited relief would require states to accept federal funding largely adjudicated and doled out by unelected bureaucrats.
Some conservatives may be concerned that, while well-intentioned, these provisions do not represent a true attempt at federalism—one which would repeal all of Obamacare's regulations and devolve health insurance oversight back to the states. It remains unclear whether any states would actually waive Obamacare regulations under the bill; if a state chooses not to do so, all of the law's costly mandates will remain in place there, leaving Obamacare as the default option. Moreover, the language requiring states "to maintain adequate and affordable health insurance coverage for individuals with pre-existing conditions" could lead to a private right of action against states utilizing the waivers—and judicial rulings that either undermine, or eliminate, the regulatory relief the waivers intend to provide.
Some conservatives may view provisions requiring anyone to whom a waiver applies to receive federal grant funding as the epitome of moral hazard—ensuring that individuals who go through health underwriting will receive federal subsidies, no matter their level of wealth or personal circumstances. By requiring states to subsidize bad actors—for instance, an individual making $250,000 who knowingly went without health coverage for years—with federal taxpayer dollars, the bill could actually raise health insurance premiums, not lower them.
Some may note that the bill could allow a future Democratic Administration—or, through its reference to "membership in a protected class under the Constitution," activist judges—to inhibit future waiver applications, and/or impose undue and counter-productive restrictions on the supposed state "flexibility" in the bill. Finally, some conservatives may be concerned that—because the grant program funding ends in 2027, and because all individuals subject to waivers must receive grant funding—the waiver program will effectively end in 2027, absent a new infusion of taxpayer dollars.
Contingency Fund: Appropriates a total of $11 billion—$6 billion for calendar year 2020, and $5 billion for calendar 2021—for a contingency fund for certain states. Three-quarters of the funding ($8.25 billion total) would go towards states that had not expanded Medicaid as of September 1, 2017, with the remaining one-quarter ($2.75 billion) going towards "low-density states"—those with a population density of fewer than 15 individuals per square mile.
Implementation Fund: Provides $500 million to implement programs under the bill. Costs $500 million over ten years.
In an addition from BCRA, permits periodic fees for direct primary care to physicians to be 1) reimbursed from a Health Savings Account without being considered "insurance" and 2) considered a form of "medical care" under the Internal Revenue Code.
Repeals the enhanced federal match (currently 95 percent, declining slightly to 90 percent) associated with Medicaid expansion, effective in 2020. Also reduces the federal Medicaid match for Puerto Rico and U.S. territories from 55 percent to 50 percent. (The federal Medicaid match for the District of Columbia would remain at 70 percent.)
The bill repeals provisions regarding the Community First Choice Option, eliminating a six percent increase in the Medicaid match rate for some home and community-based services.
Retroactive Eligibility: Effective October 2017, restricts retroactive eligibility in Medicaid from three months to two months. These changes would NOT apply to aged, blind, or disabled populations, who would still qualify for three months of retroactive eligibility.
Provider Taxes: Reduces permissible Medicaid provider taxes from 6 percent under current law to 5.6 percent in fiscal year 2021, 5.2 percent in fiscal year 2022, 4.8 percent in fiscal year 2023, 4.4 percent in fiscal year 2024, and 4 percent in fiscal year 2025 and future fiscal years—a change from BCRA, which reduced provider taxes to 5 percent in 2025 (0.2 percent reduction per year, as opposed to 0.4 percent under the Graham-Cassidy bill). Some conservatives may view provider taxes as essentially "money laundering"—a game in which states engage in shell transactions solely designed to increase the federal share of Medicaid funding and reduce states' share. More information can be found here. CBO believes states would probably reduce their spending in response to the loss of provider tax revenue, resulting in lower spending by the federal government.
While the cap would take effect in fiscal year 2020, states could choose their "base period" based on any eight consecutive quarters of expenditures between October 1, 2013 and June 30, 2017. The CMS Administrator would have authority to make adjustments to relevant data if she believes a state attempted to "game" the look-back period. Removes provisions in BCRA allowing late-expanding Medicaid states to choose a shorter period as their "base period" for determining per capita caps, which may have improperly incentivized states that decided to expand Medicaid to the able-bodied.
Exempts low-density states (those with a population density of fewer than 15 individuals per square mile) from the caps, if that state's grant program allocation (as described above) fails to increase with medical inflation, or if the Secretary determines the allotment "is insufficient…to provide comprehensive and adequate assistance to individuals in the state" under the grant program described above. Some conservatives may question the need for this carve-out for low density states—which the Secretary of HHS can apparently use at will—and why a small allocation for a program designed to "replace" Obamacare should have an impact on whether or not states reform their Medicaid programs.
Home and Community-Based Services: Creates a four year, $8 billion demonstration project from 2020 through 2023 to expand home- and community-based service payment adjustments in Medicaid, with such payment adjustments eligible for a 100 percent federal match. The 15 states with the lowest population density would be given priority for funds.
Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) Payments: Adjusts reductions in DSH payments to reflect shortfalls in funding for the state grant program described above. For fiscal years 2021 through 2025, states receiving grant allocations that do not keep up with medical inflation will have their DSH reductions reduced or eliminated; in fiscal year 2026, states with grant shortfalls will have their DSH payments increased.
Catastrophic Coverage: Allows all individuals to buy Obamacare catastrophic plans, currently only available to those under 30, beginning on January 1, 2019.
Enforcement: Clarifies existing law to specify that states may require that plans comply with relevant laws, including Section 1303 of Obamacare, which permits states to prohibit coverage of abortion in qualified health plans. While supporting this provision's intent, some conservatives may be concerned that this provision may ultimately not comply with the Senate's Byrd rule regarding the inclusion of non-fiscal matters on a budget reconciliation bill.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on September 19, 2017 January 1, 2019 Categories Costs, Coverage, Jobs, Medicaid and SCHIP, Medicare, Premiums, Regulations, TaxesTags "Repeal and Replace", 21st Century Cures Act, Abortion, Accounting gimmick, Actuarial value, Age rating, Alaska, Backroom deals, Bailouts, Benefit mandates, Better Care Reconciliation Act, Bill Cassidy, Block grant, Byrd rule, Catastrophic plans, Census Bureau, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Community health centers, Community rating, Congressional Budget Office, Continuous coverage, Cost estimates, Cost-sharing, Cost-sharing reductions, Coverage estimates, Deductibles, Department of Veterans Affairs, Device tax, Disproportionate Share Hospitals, Employer mandate, Employer-provided health coverage, Enrollment freeze, ERISA, Essential health benefits, Exchange subsidies, Family "glitch", Flexible Spending Arrangements, Fraud, Full repeal, Government spending, Graham-Cassidy, Grandmothered plans, Guaranteed issue, Health Reimbursement Arrangements, Health Savings Accounts, Home and community-based services, House v. Burwell, Hyde Amendment, Immigration, Indian Health Service, Individual mandate, Inspector General, Insurer tax, Labor supply, Legislative Bulletin, Lindsey Graham, Lobbyists, Louisiana, MAGI, Medicaid expansion, Medical loss ratio, Moral hazard, Opioid funding, Out-of-pocket maximums, Per capita cap, Planned Parenthood, Premium increases, Premiums, Prevention and Public Health Fund, Preventive care, Provider taxes, Reconciliation, Reinsurance, Risk adjustment, SCHIP, Secondary indexing, Senate Finance Committee, Senate HELP Committee, Senate parliamentarian, Small business tax credit, Special enrollment periods, Stability Fund, State flexibility, Subsidy cliffs, Supreme Court case, Tax credits, Tax treatment of health insurance, Taxes, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Under-26 mandate, Uninsured, Verification, Waivers, Work disincentives, Work requirements
John Kasich's Obamacare Bailout Plan
On Thursday morning, governors John Kasich (R-OH) and John Hickenlooper (D-CO) released a plan to "stabilize" Obamacare insurance markets. Here's what you need to know about the details of the proposal.
John Kasich Doesn't Want to Repeal Obamacare
It's worth repeating that, as recently as three years ago, Kasich said the following regarding the health care law: "From Day One, and up until today and into tomorrow, I do not support Obamacare. I never have, and I believe it should be repealed."
Oh, how times have changed. The governors' plan would not only not repeal Obamacare, it would further entrench the law, by giving tens of billions, and more likely hundreds of billions, of new taxpayer funds to wealthy insurance companies.
Governors Want Trump to Violate the Constitution
The plan calls on the Trump administration to "commit to making cost-sharing reduction payments." But as this space has previously described, the United States has an interesting document—you may have heard of it—called the Constitution. That Constitution places the "power of the purse" with Congress, not the executive.
If Congress does appropriate funds—for cost-sharing reductions or anything else—the executive cannot refuse to spend that money, per a prior Supreme Court ruling. But if Congress does not appropriate funds, the executive cannot spend money. To do otherwise would violate a criminal statute.
Asking the Trump administration to violate the Constitution may seem like a natural request to someone like Kasich, a big-government liberal who ran into legal trouble for expanding his state's Medicaid program unilaterally. But our nation is a government of laws, not men, which makes obeying the law an obligation of all citizens, let alone the chief executive.
A Selective History on Reinsurance
The blueprint cites Republicans' proposed "stability funds" during the "repeal-and-replace" debate to suggest a "temporary" stability fund providing corporate welfare to insurers—demonstrating the lack of wisdom of the original congressional proposal. In addition to this "temporary" stability fund, the governors' plan also claims that "the federal government has gone back on its commitment to these programs, in some cases refusing to fully fund [sic] risk sharing programs." It goes on to propose that "Congress should modify and strengthen federal risk sharing mechanisms, including risk adjustments and reinsurance."
The claims by the governors defy facts, particularly on reinsurance. The Government Accountability Office concluded last year that the Obama administration violated the law to give insurance companies billions more dollars in reinsurance funds than they deserved—prioritizing corporate welfare to insurers over statutorily required payments back to the U.S. Treasury.
But even after the Obama administration violated the law to give insurers billions more than they were due, the governors still feel the need to propose two separate "stability" (read: bailout) funds to prop up Obamacare. It demonstrates the massive "cash suck" that Obamacare has placed on the federal fisc.
An Impractical Proposal on Federal Employee Coverage
The plan also suggests that Congress should "allow residents in underserved counties"—defined as those with only one insurer on the exchange—"to buy into the federal employee benefit program, giving residents in rural counties access to the same health care as federal workers."
This talking point—and it sounds like little more than a talking point—appears a solution in search of a problem, for several reasons. First, the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program (FEHBP) has very high premiums for federal workers, masked by massive federal subsidies. To provide some context, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Standard Option—the most popular option in FEHBP—has a monthly premium for 2017 of $709.93 for an individual. That total stands nearly 50 percent higher than the average $476 monthly premium paid by exchange participants this year. And the cost of a family plan for the Blue Cross Blue Shield Standard Option in FEHBP—$1,645.48 per month, or $19,745.76 annually—exceeds the cost of most cars.
FEHBP has such high premiums because it provides far richer benefits than the Obamacare exchanges. A 2009 Congressional Research Service report found that the Blue Cross Blue Shield standard option pays an average percentage of health expenses—in technical terms, the plan's actuarial value—of 87 percent. By contrast, Obamacare links its insurance subsidies to the second-least-costly silver plan, which has an actuarial value of 70 percent.
Because the federal employee plan provides such generous coverage, opening it up to exchange customers would necessitate massive new increases in subsidies, which the governors' plan also alludes to ("provide adequate and effective subsidies"). Combined with the reinsurance and cost-sharing reduction payments, it amounts to propping up Obamacare on taxpayers' dime.
Millions of Americans found out in 2013 that when it comes to Obamacare, if you like your plan, you may not be able to keep it. But with respect to both Obamacare and the governors' proposal, regardless of whether you like the plan, you'll definitely be required to pay for it.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on September 1, 2017 January 1, 2019 Categories Costs, Coverage, Premiums, RegulationsTags Actuarial value, Bailouts, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Congressional Research Service, Cost-sharing reductions, Exchange subsidies, FEHBP, Government Accountability Office, Impoundment, John Hickenlooper, John Kasich, Plan cancellations, Reinsurance, Risk adjustment, Stability bill, The Federalist, Unconstitutional
Legislative Bulletin: Updated Summary of Better Care Reconciliation Act
On July 13, Senate leadership issued a revised draft of their Obamacare "repeal-and-replace" bill, the Better Care Reconciliation Act. Changes to the bill include:
Modifies the current language (created in last year's 21st Century Cures Act) allowing small businesses of under 50 employees to reimburse employees' individual health insurance through Health Reimbursement Arrangements;
Allows Obamacare subsidies to be used for catastrophic insurance plans previously authorized by that law;
Amends the short-term Stability Fund, by requiring the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reserve one percent of fund monies "for providing and distributing funds to health insurance issuers in states where the cost of insurance premiums are at least 75 percent higher than the national average"—a provision which some conservatives may view as an earmark for Alaska (the only state that currently qualifies);
Increases appropriations for the long-term Stability Fund to $19.2 billion for each of calendar years 2022 through 2026, up from $6 billion in 2022 and 2023, $5 billion in 2024 and 2025, and $4 billion in 2026—an increase of $70 billion total;
Strikes repeal of the Medicare tax increase on "high-income" earners, as well as repeal of the net investment tax;
Allows for Health Savings Account funds to be used for the purchase of high-deductible health plans, but only to the extent that such insurance was not purchased on a tax-preferred basis (i.e., through the exclusion for employer-provided health insurance, or through Obamacare insurance subsidies);
Allows HSA dollars to be used to reimburse expenses for "dependents" under age 27, effectively extending the "under-26" provisions of Obamacare to Health Savings Accounts;
Prohibits HSA-qualified high deductible health plans from covering abortions, other than in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother—an effective prohibition on the use of HSA funds to purchase plans that cover abortion, but one that the Senate Parliamentarian may advise does not comport with procedural restrictions on budget reconciliation bills;
Changes the methodology for calculating Medicaid Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payment reductions, such that 1) non-expansion states' DSH reductions would be minimized for states that have below-average reductions in the uninsured (rather than below-average enrollment in Medicaid, as under the base text); and 2) provides a carve-out treating states covering individuals through a Medicaid Section 1115 waiver as non-expansion states for purposes of having their DSH payment reductions undone;
Retains current law provisions allowing 90 days of retroactive Medicaid eligibility for seniors and blind and disabled populations, while restricting eligibility to the month an individual applied for the program for all other Medicaid populations;
Includes language allowing late-expanding Medicaid states to choose a shorter period (but not fewer than four) quarters as their "base period" for determining per capita caps—a provision that some conservatives may view as improperly incentivizing states that decided to expand Medicaid to the able-bodied;
Exempts declared public health emergencies from the Medicaid per capita caps—based on an increase in beneficiaries' average expenses due to such emergency—but such exemption may not exceed $5 billion;
Modifies the per capita cap treatment for states that expanded Medicaid during Fiscal Year 2016, but before July 1, 2016—a provision that may help states like Louisiana that expanded during the intervening period;
Creates a four year, $8 billion demonstration project from 2020 through 2023 to expand home- and community-based service payment adjustments in Medicaid—with payment adjustments eligible for a 100 percent federal match, and the 15 states with the lowest population density given priority for funds;
Modifies the Medicaid block grant formula, prohibits Medicaid funds from being used for other health programs (a change from the base bill), and eliminates a quality standards requirement;
Allows for modification of the Medicaid block grant during declared public health emergencies—based on an increase in beneficiaries' average expenses due to such emergency;
Makes a state's expenses on behalf of Indians eligible for a 100 percent match, irrespective of the source of those services (current law provides for a 100 percent match only for services provided at an Indian Health Service center);
Makes technical and other changes to small business health plan language included in the base text;
Modifies language repealing the Prevention and Public Health Fund, to allow $1.25 billion in funding for Fiscal Year 2018;
Increases opioid funding to a total of $45 billion—$44.748 billion from Fiscal Years 2018 through 2026 for treatment of substance use or mental health disorders, and $252 million from Fiscal Years 2018 through 2022 for opioid addiction research—all of which are subject to few spending restrictions, which some conservatives may be concerned would give virtually unfettered power to the Department of Health and Human Services to direct this spending;
Modifies language regarding continuous coverage provisions, and includes health care sharing ministries as "creditable coverage" for the purposes of imposing waiting periods;
Grants the Secretary of Health and Human Services the authority to exempt other individuals from the continuous coverage requirement—a provision some conservatives may be concerned gives HHS excessive authority;
Makes technical changes to the state innovation waiver program amendments included in the base bill;
Allows all individuals to buy Obamacare catastrophic plans, beginning on January 1, 2019;
Applies enforcement provisions to language in Obamacare allowing states to opt-out of mandatory abortion coverage;
Allows insurers to offer non-compliant plans, so long as they continue to offer at least one gold and one silver plan subject to Obamacare's restrictions;
Allows non-compliant plans to eliminate requirements related to actuarial value; essential health benefits; cost-sharing; guaranteed issue; community rating; waiting periods; preventive health services (including contraception); and medical loss ratios;
Does NOT allow non-compliant plans to waive or eliminate requirements related to a single risk pool, which some conservatives may consider both potentially unworkable—as it will be difficult to combine non-community-rated plans and community-rated coverage into one risk pool—and unlikely to achieve significant premium reductions;
Does NOT allow non-compliant plans to waive or eliminate requirements related to annual and lifetime limits, or coverage for "dependents" under age 26—which some conservatives may view as an incomplete attempt to provide consumer freedom and choice;
States that non-compliant coverage shall not be considered "creditable coverage" for purposes of the continuous coverage/waiting period provision;
Allows HHS to increase the minimum actuarial value of plans above 58 percent if necessary to allow compliant plans to be continued to offered in an area where non-compliant plans are available;
Uses $70 billion in Stability Fund dollars to subsidize high-risk individuals in states that choose the "consumer freedom" option—a provision that some conservatives may be concerned will effectively legitimize a perpetual bailout fund for insurers in connection with the "consumer freedom" option; and
Appropriates $2 billion in funds for state regulation and oversight of non-compliant plans.
A full summary of the bill, as amended, follows below, along with possible conservative concerns where applicable. Where provisions in the bill were also included in the reconciliation bill passed by Congress early in 2016 (H.R. 3762, text available here), differences between the two versions, if any, are noted.
Ten-year fiscal impacts from the original Congressional Budget Office score are noted—however, these estimates do not reflect the updated language. An updated CBO score of the revised draft is expected early next week.
Of particular note: It is unclear whether this legislative language has been fully vetted with the Senate Parliamentarian. When the Senate considers budget reconciliation legislation—as it plans to do with the Obamacare "repeal-and-replace" bill—the Parliamentarian advises whether provisions are budgetary in nature and can be included in the bill (which can pass with a 51-vote simple majority), and which provisions are not budgetary in nature and must be considered separately (i.e., require 60 votes to pass).
As the bill was released prior to issuance of a full CBO score, it is entirely possible the Parliamentarian has not fully vetted this draft—which means provisions could change substantially, or even get stricken from the bill, due to procedural concerns as the process moves forward.
Revisions to Obamacare Subsidies: Modifies eligibility thresholds for the current regime of Obamacare subsidies. Under current law, households with incomes of between 100-400 percent of the federal poverty level (FPL, $24,600 for a family of four in 2017) qualify for subsidies. This provision would change eligibility to include all households with income under 350% FPL—effectively eliminating the Medicaid "coverage gap," whereby low-income individuals (those with incomes under 100% FPL) in states that did not expand Medicaid do not qualify for subsidized insurance.
Clarifies the definition of eligibility by substituting "qualified alien" for the current-law term "an alien lawfully present in the United States" with respect to the five-year waiting period for said aliens to receive taxpayer-funded benefits, per the welfare reform law enacted in 1996.
Changes the bidding structure for insurance subsidies. Under current law, subsidy amounts are based on the second-lowest silver plan bid in a given area—with silver plans based upon an actuarial value (the average percentage of annual health expenses covered) of 70 percent. This provision would base subsidies upon the "median cost benchmark plan," which would be based upon an average actuarial value of 58 percent.
Modifies the existing Obamacare subsidy regime, by including age as an additional factor for determining subsidy amounts. Younger individuals would have to spend a smaller percentage of income on health insurance than under current law, while older individuals would spend a higher percentage of income. For instance, an individual under age 29, making just under 350% FPL, would pay 6.4% of income on health insurance, whereas an individual between ages 60-64 at the same income level would pay 16.2% of income on health insurance. (Current law limits individuals to paying 9.69% of income on insurance, at all age brackets, for those with income just below 400% FPL.)
Lowers the "failsafe" at which secondary indexing provisions under Obamacare would apply. Under current law, if total spending on premium subsidies exceeds 0.504% of gross domestic product annually in years after 2018, the premium subsidies would grow more slowly. (Additional information available here, and a Congressional Budget Office analysis available here.) This provision would reduce the overall cap at which the "failsafe" would apply to 0.4% of GDP.
Eliminates subsidy eligibility for households eligible for employer-subsidized health insurance. Also modifies definitions regarding eligibility for subsidies for employees participating in small businesses' health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs).
Increases penalties on erroneous claims of the credit from 20 percent to 25 percent. Applies most of the above changes beginning in calendar year 2020. Allows Obamacare subsides to be used for catastrophic insurance plans previously authorized under that law.
Beginning in 2018, changes the definition of a qualified health plan, to prohibit plans from covering abortion other than in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother. Some conservatives may be concerned that this provision may eventually be eliminated under the provisions of the Senate's "Byrd rule," therefore continuing taxpayer funding of plans that cover abortion. (For more information, see these two articles.)
Eliminates provisions that limit repayment of subsidies for years after 2017. Subsidy eligibility is based upon estimated income, with recipients required to reconcile their subsidies received with actual income during the year-end tax filing process. Current law limits the amount of excess subsidies households with incomes under 400% FPL must pay. This provision would eliminate that limitation on repayments, which may result in fewer individuals taking up subsidies in the first place. Saves $25 billion over ten years—$18.7 billion in lower outlay spending, and $6.3 billion in additional revenues.
Some conservatives may be concerned first that, rather than repealing Obamacare, these provisions actually expand Obamacare—for instance, extending subsidies to some individuals currently not eligible. Some conservatives may also be concerned that, as with Obamacare, these provisions will create disincentives to work that would reduce the labor supply by the equivalent of millions of jobs. Finally, as noted above, some conservatives may believe that, as with Obamacare itself, enacting these policy changes through the budget reconciliation process will prevent the inclusion of strong pro-life protections, thus ensuring continued taxpayer funding of plans that cover abortion. When compared to Obamacare, these provisions reduce the deficit by a net of $292 billion over ten years—$235 billion in reduced outlay spending (the refundable portion of the subsidies, for individuals with no income tax liability), and $57 billion in increased revenue (the non-refundable portion of the subsidies, reducing individuals' tax liability).
Small Business Tax Credit: Repeals Obamacare's small business tax credit, effective in 2020. Disallows the small business tax credit beginning in 2018 for any plan that offers coverage of abortion, except in the case of rape, incest, or to protect the life of the mother—which, as noted above, some conservatives may believe will be stricken during the Senate's "Byrd rule" review. This language is substantially similar to Section 203 of the 2015/2016 reconciliation bill, with the exception of the new pro-life language. Saves $6 billion over ten years.
Individual and Employer Mandates: Sets the individual and employer mandate penalties to zero, for all years after December 31, 2015. This language is similar to Sections 204 and 205 of the 2015/2016 reconciliation bill. The individual mandate provision cuts taxes by $38 billion, and the employer mandate provision cuts taxes by $171 billion, both over ten years.
Stability Funds: Creates two stability funds intended to stabilize insurance markets—the first giving funds directly to insurers, and the second giving funds to states. The first would appropriate $15 billion each for 2018 and 2019, and $10 billion each for 2020 and 2021, ($50 billion total) to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to "fund arrangements with health insurance issuers to address coverage and access disruption and respond to urgent health care needs within States." Instructs the CMS Administrator to "determine an appropriate procedure for providing and distributing funds." Does not require a state match for receipt of stability funds.
Requires the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reserve one percent of fund monies "for providing and distributing funds to health insurance issuers in states where the cost of insurance premiums are at least 75 percent higher than the national average"—a provision which some conservatives may view as an earmark for Alaska (the only state that currently qualifies).
Creates a longer term stability fund with a total of $132 billion in federal funding—$8 billion in 2019, $14 billion in 2020 and 2021, and $19.2 billion in 2022 through 2026. Requires a state match beginning in 2022—7 percent that year, followed by 14 percent in 2023, 21 percent in 2024, 28 percent in 2025, and 35 percent in 2026. Allows the Administrator to determine each state's allotment from the fund; states could keep their allotments for two years, but unspent funds after that point could be re-allocated to other states.
Long-term fund dollars could be used to provide financial assistance to high-risk individuals, including by reducing premium costs, "help stabilize premiums and promote state health insurance market participation and choice," provide payments to health care providers, or reduce cost-sharing. However, all of the $50 billion in short-term stability funds—and $15 billion of the long-term funds ($5 billion each in 2019, 2020, and 2021)—must be used to stabilize premiums and insurance markets. The short-term stability fund requires applications from insurers; the long-term stability fund would require a one-time application from states.
Both stability funds are placed within Title XXI of the Social Security Act, which governs the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). While SCHIP has a statutory prohibition on the use of federal funds to pay for abortion in state SCHIP programs, it is unclear at best whether this restriction would provide sufficient pro-life protections to ensure that Obamacare plans do not provide coverage of abortion. It is unclear whether and how federal reinsurance funds provided after-the-fact (i.e., covering some high-cost claims that already occurred) can prospectively prevent coverage of abortions.
Some conservatives may be concerned first that the stability funds would amount to over $100 billion in corporate welfare payments to insurance companies; second that the funds give nearly-unilateral authority to the CMS Administrator to determine how to allocate payments among states; third that, in giving so much authority to CMS, the funds further undermine the principle of state regulation of health insurance; fourth that the funds represent a short-term budgetary gimmick—essentially, throwing taxpayer dollars at insurers to keep premiums low between now and the 2020 presidential election—that cannot or should not be sustained in the longer term; and finally that placing the funds within the SCHIP program will prove insufficient to prevent federal funding of plans that cover abortion. Spends a total of $107 billion over ten years.
Tax on high-cost health plans (also known as the "Cadillac tax")—but only through 2025, lowering revenues by $66 billion;
Limits on Flexible Spending Arrangement contributions, effective January 1, 2018, lowering revenues by $18.6 billion;
Tax on pharmaceuticals, effective January 1, 2018, lowering revenues by $25.7 billion;
Medical device tax, effective January 1, 2018, lowering revenues by $19.6 billion;
Health insurer tax (currently being suspended), lowering revenues by $144.7 billion;
Elimination of deduction for employers who receive a subsidy from Medicare for offering retiree prescription drug coverage, effective January 1, 2017, lowering revenues by $1.8 billion;
Limitation on medical expenses as an itemized deduction, effective January 1, 2017, lowering revenues by $36.1 billion; and
Tax on tanning services, effective September 30, 2017, lowering revenues by $600 million.
Allows HSA dollars to be used to reimburse expenses for "dependents" under age 27, effectively extending the "under-26" provisions of Obamacare to Health Savings Accounts. Prohibits HSA-qualified high deductible health plans from covering abortions, other than in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother—an effective prohibition on the use of HSA funds to purchase plans that cover abortion, but one that the Senate Parliamentarian may advise does not comport with procedural restrictions on budget reconciliation bills.
Federal Payments to States: Imposes a one-year ban on federal funds flowing to certain entities. This provision would have the effect of preventing Medicaid funding of certain medical providers, including Planned Parenthood, so long as Planned Parenthood provides for abortions (except in cases of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother). CBO believes this provision would save a total of $225 million in Medicaid spending, while increasing spending by $79 million over a decade, because 15 percent of Planned Parenthood clients would lose access to services, increasing the number of births in the Medicaid program by several thousand. This language is virtually identical to Section 206 of the 2015/2016 reconciliation bill. Saves $146 million over ten years.
Medicaid Expansion: The discussion draft varies significantly from the repeal of Medicaid expansion included in Section 207 of the 2015/2016 reconciliation bill. The 2015/2016 reconciliation bill repealed both elements of the Medicaid expansion—the change in eligibility allowing able-bodied adults to join the program, and the enhanced (90-100%) federal match that states received for covering them.
By contrast, the discussion draft retains eligibility for the able-bodied adult population—making this population optional for states to cover, rather than mandatory. (The Supreme Court's 2012 ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius made Medicaid expansion optional for states.) Some conservatives may be concerned that this change represents a marked weakening of the 2015/2016 reconciliation bill language, one that will entrench a massive expansion of Medicaid beyond its original focus on the most vulnerable in society.
With respect to the Medicaid match rate, the discussion draft reduces the enhanced federal match to states—scheduled under current law as 90 percent in 2020—to 85 percent in 2021, 80 percent in 2022, and 75 percent in 2023. The regular federal match rates would apply for expansion states—defined as those that expanded Medicaid prior to March 1, 2017—beginning in 2024, and to all other states effective immediately. (In the case of states that already expanded Medicaid to able-bodied adults prior to Obamacare's enactment, the bill provides for an 80 percent federal match for 2017 through 2023.)
The bill also repeals the requirement that Medicaid "benchmark" plans comply with Obamacare's essential health benefits, also effective December 31, 2019. In general, the Medicaid provisions outlined above, when combined with the per capita cap provisions below, would save a net of $772 billion over ten years.
Finally, the bill repeals provisions regarding presumptive eligibility and the Community First Choice Option, eliminating a six percent increase in the Medicaid match rate for some home and community-based services. Saves $19 billion over ten years.
Some conservatives may be concerned that the language in this bill would give expansion states a strong incentive to sign up many more individuals for Medicaid over the next seven years. Some conservatives may also be concerned that, by extending the Medicaid transition for such a long period, it will never in fact go into effect.
Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) Allotments: Exempts non-expansion states from scheduled reductions in DSH payments in fiscal years 2021 through 2024, and provides an increase in DSH payments for non-expansion states in fiscal year 2020, based on a state's Medicaid enrollment. Spends $19 billion over ten years.
Retroactive Eligibility: Effective October 2017, restricts retroactive eligibility in Medicaid to the month in which the individual applied for the program for; current law requires three months of retroactive eligibility. These changes would NOT apply to aged, blind, or disabled populations, who would still qualify for three months of retroactive eligibility. Saves $5 billion over ten years.
Non-Expansion State Funding: Includes $10 billion ($2 billion per year) in funding for Medicaid non-expansion states, for calendar years 2018 through 2022. States can receive a 100 percent federal match (95 percent in 2022), up to their share of the allotment. A non-expansion state's share of the $2 billion in annual allotments would be determined by its share of individuals below 138% of the federal poverty level (FPL) when compared to non-expansion states. This funding would be excluded from the Medicaid per capita spending caps discussed in greater detail below. Spends $10 billion over ten years.
States may not impose requirements on pregnant women (through 60 days after birth); children under age 19; the sole parent of a child under age 6, or sole parent or caretaker of a child with disabilities; or a married individual or head of household under age 20 who "maintains satisfactory attendance at secondary school or equivalent," or participates in vocational education. No separate budgetary impact noted; included in larger estimate of coverage provisions.
Provider Taxes: Reduces permissible Medicaid provider taxes from 6 percent under current law to 5.8 percent in fiscal year 2021, 5.6 percent in fiscal year 2022, 5.4 percent in fiscal year 2023, 5.2 percent in fiscal year 2024, and 5 percent in fiscal year 2025 and future fiscal years. Some conservatives may view provider taxes as essentially "money laundering"—a game in which states engage in shell transactions solely designed to increase the federal share of Medicaid funding and reduce states' share. More information can be found here. CBO believes states would probably reduce their spending in response to the loss of provider tax revenue, resulting in lower spending by the federal government. Saves $5.2 billion over ten years.
The cap would include all spending on medical care provided through the Medicaid program, with the exception of DSH payments and Medicare cost-sharing paid for dual eligibles (individuals eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare). The cap would rise by medical CPI plus one percentage point annually.
While the cap would take effect in fiscal year 2020, states could choose their "base period" based on any eight consecutive quarters of expenditures between October 1, 2013 and June 30, 2017. The CMS Administrator would have authority to make adjustments to relevant data if she believes a state attempted to "game" the look-back period. Late-expanding Medicaid states can choose a shorter period (but not fewer than four) quarters as their "base period" for determining per capita caps—a provision that some conservatives may view as improperly incentivizing states that decided to expand Medicaid to the able-bodied.
Creates five classes of beneficiaries for whom the caps would apply: 1) elderly individuals over age 65; 2) blind and disabled beneficiaries; 3) children under age 19; 4) expansion enrollees (i.e., able-bodied adults enrolled under Obamacare); and 5) all other non-disabled, non-elderly, non-expansion adults (e.g., pregnant women, parents, etc.). Excludes State Children's Health Insurance Plan enrollees, Indian Health Service participants, breast and cervical cancer services eligible individuals, and certain other partial benefit enrollees from the per capita caps. Exempts declared public health emergencies from the Medicaid per capita caps—based on an increase in beneficiaries' average expenses due to such emergency—but such exemption may not exceed $5 billion. Modifies the per capita cap treatment for states that expanded Medicaid during Fiscal Year 2016, but before July 1, 2016—a provision that may help states like Louisiana that expanded during the intervening period.
For years before fiscal year 2025, indexes the caps to medical inflation for children, expansion enrollees, and all other non-expansion enrollees, with the caps rising by medical inflation plus one percentage point for aged, blind, and disabled beneficiaries. Beginning in fiscal year 2025, indexes the caps to overall inflation.
Includes provisions in the House bill regarding "required expenditures by certain political subdivisions." Some conservatives may question the need to insert a parochial New York-related provision into the bill.
Provides a provision—not included in the House bill—for effectively re-basing the per capita caps. Allows the Secretary of Health and Human Services to increase the caps by between 0.5% and 2% for low-spending states (defined as having per capita expenditures 25% below the national median), and lower the caps by between 0.5% and 2% for high-spending states (with per capita expenditures 25% above the national median). The Secretary may only implement this provision in a budget-neutral manner, i.e., one that does not increase the deficit. However, this re-basing provision shall NOT apply to any state with a population density of under 15 individuals per square mile.
Some conservatives may note that the use of the past several years as the "base period" for the per capita caps, benefits states who expanded Medicaid to able-bodied adults under Obamacare. The most recent actuarial report on Medicaid noted that, while the actuary originally predicted that adults in the expansion population would cost less than existing populations, in reality each newly eligible enrollee cost 13.6% more than existing populations in 2016. Some states have used the 100% federal match for their expansion populations—i.e., "free money from Washington"—to raise provider reimbursement levels.
Some conservatives may therefore be concerned that the draft bill would retain the increased spending on adults in expansion states—extending the inequities caused by states that have used Obamacare's "free money" to raise Medicaid spending while sending Washington the tab. Coupled with the expansion provisions outlined above, saves a net of $772 billion over ten years.
Permits states to roll over block grant payments from year to year, provided that they comply with maintenance of effort requirements. Reduces federal payments for the following year in the case of states that fail to meet their maintenance of effort spending requirements, and permits the HHS Secretary to make reductions in the case of a state's non-compliance. Requires the Secretary to publish block grant amounts for every state every year, regardless of whether or not the state elects the block grant option.
Exempts states from per capita caps, waivers, state plan amendments, and other provisions of Title XIX of the Social Security Act while participating in Medicaid block grants. Coupled with the expansion provisions outlined above, saves a net of $772 billion over ten years.
Medicaid Waivers: Permits states to extend Medicaid managed care waivers (those approved prior to January 1, 2017, and renewed at least once) in perpetuity through a state plan amendment, with an expedited/guaranteed approval process by CMS. Requires HHS to adopt processes "encouraging States to adopt or extend waivers" regarding home and community-based services, if those waivers would improve patient access. No budgetary impact.
Coordination with States: After January 1, 2018, prohibits CMS from finalizing any Medicaid rule unless CMS and HHS 1) provide an ongoing regular process for soliciting comments from state Medicaid agencies and Medicaid directors; 2) solicit oral and written comments in advance of any proposed rule on Medicaid; and 3) respond to said comments in the preamble of the proposed rule. No budgetary impact.
Inpatient Psychiatric Services: Provides for optional state Medicaid coverage of inpatient psychiatric services for individuals over 21 and under 65 years of age. (Current law permits coverage of such services for individuals under age 21.) Such coverage would not exceed 30 days in any month or 90 days in any calendar year. In order to receive such assistance, the state must maintain its number of licensed psychiatric beds as of the date of enactment, and maintain current levels of funding for inpatient services and outpatient psychiatric services. Provides a lower (i.e., 50 percent) match for such services, furnished on or after October 1, 2018. No separate budgetary impact noted; included in larger estimate of coverage provisions.
Medicaid and Indian Health Service: Makes a state's expenses on behalf of Indians eligible for a 100 percent match, irrespective of the source of those services. Current law provides for a 100 percent match only for services provided at an Indian Health Service center.
Small Business Health Plans: Amends the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) to allow for creation of small business health plans. Some may question whether or not this provision will meet the "Byrd rule" test for inclusion on a budget reconciliation measure. No separate budgetary impact noted; included in larger estimate of coverage provisions.
Prevention and Public Health Fund: Eliminates funding for the Obamacare prevention "slush fund," and rescinds all unobligated balances, beginning in Fiscal Year 2019.
Opioid Funding: Appropriates $45 billion—$44.748 billion from Fiscal Years 2018 through 2026 for treatment of substance use or mental health disorders, and $252 million from Fiscal Years 2018 through 2022 for opioid addiction research. The $45 billion in funds are subject to few spending restrictions, which some conservatives may be concerned would give virtually unfettered power to the Department of Health and Human Services to direct this spending.
Community Health Centers: Increases funding for community health centers by $422 million for Fiscal Year 2018—money intended to offset reductions in spending on Planned Parenthood affiliates (see "Federal Payments to States" above). Language regarding community health centers was included in Section 102 of the 2015/2016 reconciliation bill. Spends $422 million over ten years.
Age Rating: Changes the maximum variation in insurance markets from 3-to-1 (i.e., insurers can charge older applicants no more than three times younger applicants) to 5-to-1 effective January 1, 2019, with the option for states to provide for other age rating requirements. Some conservatives may be concerned that, despite the ability for states to opt out, this provision, by setting a default federal standard, maintains the intrusion over insurance markets exacerbated by Obamacare. No separate budgetary impact noted; included in larger estimate of coverage provisions.
Medical Loss Ratios: Permits states to determine their own medical loss ratios, beginning for plan years on or after January 1, 2019. No separate budgetary impact noted; included in larger estimate of coverage provisions.
Insurance Waiting Periods: Imposes waiting periods on individuals lacking continuous coverage (i.e., with a coverage gap of more than 63 days). Requires carriers to, beginning with plan years starting after January 1, 2019, impose a six-month waiting period on individuals who cannot show 12 months of continuous coverage. However, the bill states that such waiting period "shall not apply to an individual who is enrolled in health insurance coverage in the individual market on the day before the effective date of the coverage in which the individual is newly enrolling." The waiting period would extend for six months from the date of application for coverage, or the first date of the new plan year.
Permits the Department of Health and Human Services to require insurers to provide certificates of continuous coverage, and includes health care sharing ministries as "creditable coverage" for purposes of the requirement. Prohibits waiting periods for newborns and adopted children, provided they obtain coverage within 30 days of birth or adoption, and other individuals the Secretary may designate—an overly broad grant of authority that some conservatives may believe will give excessive power to federal bureaucrats.
Some conservatives may be concerned that this provision, rather than repealing Obamacare's regulatory mandates, would further entrench a Washington-centered structure, one that has led premiums to more than double since Obamacare took effect. Some conservatives may also note that this provision will not take effect until the 2019 plan year—meaning that the effective repeal of the individual mandate upon the bill's enactment, coupled with the continuation of Obamacare's regulatory structure, could further destabilize insurance markets over the next 18 months. CBO believes this provision will only modestly increase the number of people with health insurance. No separate budgetary impact noted; included in larger estimate of coverage provisions.
State Innovation Waivers: Amends Section 1332 of Obamacare regarding state innovation waivers. Eliminates the requirement that states codify their waivers in state law, by allowing a Governor or State Insurance Commissioner to provide authority for said waivers. Appropriates $2 billion for Fiscal Years 2017 through 2019 to allow states to submit waiver applications, and allows states to use the long-term stability fund to carry out the plan. Allows for an expedited approval process "if the Secretary determines that such expedited process is necessary to respond to an urgent or emergency situation with respect to health insurance coverage within a State."
Requires the HHS Secretary to approve all waivers, unless they will increase the federal budget deficit—a significant change from the Obamacare parameters, which many conservatives viewed as unduly restrictive. (For more background on Section 1332 waivers, see this article.)
Provides for a standard eight-year waiver (unless a state requests a shorter period), with automatic renewals upon application by the state, and may not be cancelled by the Secretary before the expiration of the eight-year period.
Provides that Section 1332 waivers approved prior to enactment shall be governed under the "old" (i.e., Obamacare) parameters, that waiver applications submitted after enactment shall be governed under the "new" parameters, and that states with pending (but not yet approved) applications at the time of enactment can choose to have their waivers governed under the "old" or the "new" parameters. Spends $2 billion over ten years. With respect to the fiscal impact of the waivers themselves, CBO noted no separate budgetary impact noted, including them in the larger estimate of coverage provisions.
Catastrophic Coverage: Allows all individuals to buy Obamacare catastrophic plans, beginning on January 1, 2019.
Cost-Sharing Subsidies: Repeals Obamacare's cost-sharing subsidies, effective December 31, 2019. Appropriates funds for cost-sharing subsidy claims for plan years through 2019—a provision not included in the House bill. The House of Representatives filed suit against the Obama Administration (House v. Burwell) alleging the Administration acted unconstitutionally in spending funds on the cost-sharing subsidies without an explicit appropriation from Congress. The case is currently on hold pending settlement discussions between the Trump Administration and the House. Some conservatives may view the appropriation first as likely to get stricken under the "Byrd rule," and second as a budget gimmick—acknowledging that Obamacare did NOT appropriate funds for the payments by including an appropriation for 2017 through 2019, but then relying on over $100 billion in phantom "savings" from repealing the non-existent "appropriation" for years after 2020. Saves $105 billion over ten years.
"Consumer Freedom" Option: Allows insurers to offer non-compliant plans, so long as they continue to offer at least one gold and one silver plan subject to Obamacare's restrictions. Allows non-compliant plans to eliminate requirements related to:
Actuarial value;
Cost-sharing;
Guaranteed issue;
Community rating;
Waiting periods;
Preventive health services (including contraception); and
Medical loss ratios.
Does NOT allow non-compliant plans to waive or eliminate requirements related to a single risk pool, which some conservatives may consider both potentially unworkable—as it will be difficult to combine non-community-rated plans and community-rated coverage into one risk pool—and unlikely to achieve significant premium reductions. Also does NOT allow non-compliant plans to waive or eliminate requirements related to annual and lifetime limits, or coverage for "dependents" under age 26—which some conservatives may view as an incomplete attempt to provide consumer freedom and choice.
States that non-compliant coverage shall not be considered "creditable coverage" for purposes of the continuous coverage/waiting period provision. Allows HHS to increase the minimum actuarial value of plans above 58 percent if necessary to allow compliant plans to be continued to offered in an area where non-compliant plans are available.
Uses $70 billion in Stability Fund dollars to subsidize high-risk individuals in states that choose the "consumer freedom" option—a provision that some conservatives may be concerned will effectively legitimize a perpetual bailout fund for insurers in connection with the "consumer freedom" option. Also appropriates $2 billion in funds for state regulation and oversight of non-compliant plans.
Author chrisjacobsPosted on July 13, 2017 January 1, 2019 Categories Costs, Coverage, Jobs, Medicaid and SCHIP, Medicare, Premiums, Regulations, TaxesTags "Repeal and Replace", 21st Century Cures Act, Abortion, Accounting gimmick, Actuarial value, Age rating, Alaska, Backroom deals, Bailouts, Benefit mandates, Better Care Reconciliation Act, Block grant, Byrd rule, Cadillac tax, Catastrophic plans, Census Bureau, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Community health centers, Community rating, Congressional Budget Office, Continuous coverage, Cost estimates, Cost-sharing, Cost-sharing reductions, Coverage estimates, Deductibles, Department of Veterans Affairs, Device tax, Disproportionate Share Hospitals, Employer mandate, Employer-provided health coverage, Enrollment freeze, ERISA, Essential health benefits, Exchange subsidies, Family "glitch", Flexible Spending Arrangements, Fraud, Full repeal, Government spending, Grandmothered plans, Guaranteed issue, Health Reimbursement Arrangements, Health Savings Accounts, Home and community-based services, House v. Burwell, Hyde Amendment, Immigration, Indian Health Service, Individual mandate, Inspector General, Insurer tax, Labor supply, Legislative Bulletin, Louisiana, MAGI, Medicaid expansion, Medical loss ratio, Opioid funding, Out-of-pocket maximums, Per capita cap, Planned Parenthood, Premium increases, Premiums, Prevention and Public Health Fund, Preventive care, Provider taxes, Reconciliation, Reinsurance, SCHIP, Secondary indexing, Senate Finance Committee, Senate HELP Committee, Senate parliamentarian, Small business tax credit, Special enrollment periods, Stability Fund, State flexibility, Subsidy cliffs, Supreme Court case, Tax credits, Tax treatment of health insurance, Taxes, The Federalist, Under-26 mandate, Uninsured, Verification, Waivers, Work disincentives, Work requirements