Two states in two days...just 24 hours after the Washington State Insurance Commissioner pulled the plug on the "Aliera Healthcare" and "Trinity Healthshare" healthcare sharing ministries for fraud, the New Hampshire Insurance Dept. is issuing a similar warning (although they don't appear to be actually shutting the operation down just yet):
Consumer Alert on Potential Unlicensed Health Insurance Company
CONCORD, NH – As a result of a recent Georgia court order, the New Hampshire Insurance Department is advising consumers that Aliera, a company that markets itself as a health care sharing ministry, may be operating illegally in New Hampshire.
A health care sharing ministry is an organization that facilitates sharing of health care costs between individual members who have common ethical or religious beliefs in the United States. A health care sharing ministry does not use actuaries, does not accept risk or make guarantees, and does not purchase reinsurance polices on behalf of its members.
Members of health care sharing ministries are exempt from the individual responsibility requirements of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as Obamacare. This means members of health care sharing ministries are not required to have insurance as outlined in the individual mandate.
Bottom line: I was pretty damned close, coming within 2% of the actual average premium in 27 states and within 5% in 42 states. Nationally, I was off by 2.0%, projecting an average monthly premium of $611 vs. the $599 actual average.
Every year for 4 years running, I've spent the entire spring/summer/early fall painstakingly tracking every insurance carrier rate filing for the following year to determine just how much average insurance policy premiums on the individual market are projected to increase or decrease.
The actual work is difficult due to the ever-changing landscape as carriers jump in and out of the market, their tendency repeatedly revise their requests, and the confusing blizzard of actual filing forms which sometimes make it next to impossible to find the specific data I need.
The actual data I need to compile my estimates are actually fairly simple, however. I really only need three pieces of information for each carrier:
To improve affordability and access to health care, the Governor's Budget proposed subsidies to help more low and middle class Californians afford health coverage through Covered California.
About three weeks ago I noted that the Nevada state Senate had passed a bill which locks in many of the ACA's patient protections at the state level, just in case the idiotic #TexasFoldEm lawsuit prevails and the ACA is repealed after all.
Nevada stands to become the fifth state to fully incorporate the federal Affordable Care Act’s protections for patients with pre-existing conditions into state law after unanimous passage of a bill Tuesday in the state Senate.
"Fully incorporate" isn't quite accurate; as I noted with the Senate version, it looks like the three most important ones are covered (Guaranteed Issue, Community Rating and the ACA's 10 Essential Health Benefits), along with a pre-ACA law letting young adults stay on their parents plan until age 24 (but only if they're unmarried and enrolled in school).
HELENA — Gov. Steve Bullock has signed legislation meant to lower premiums for Montana customers who receive health insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s individual marketplace.
Bullock signed the bill Tuesday creating a reinsurance program to help reimburse insurers for high-cost claims so those costs aren’t included in determining individual marketplace premiums for the following year.
U.S. health officials also must approve the plan, which is estimated to offset 2020 premium increases by 10% to 20%.
UPDATE 11/29/19: This horrific and batshit insane Ohio bill is making the news again six month later thanks to a new Guardian article about it.
The only silver lining I can find here is that the bill doesn't appear to have made any further progress in that time--according to the official Ohio Legislature website, so far it's only been "introduced" and "referred to committee", and those happened back in April. The Guardian article has the number of co-sponsors the same as it was in May as well (19, plus the primary sponsor of the bill).
UPDATE: It's been pointed out that the Supreme Court has ruled that minors can't receive the death penalty, so I guess that means "only" life in prison for them. If they're 18 or older, however...
On the other hand, several people have noted that an 11-year old pelvis isn't generally developed enough to even deliver a baby safely, along with other health risks, so it could very well be a death sentence regardless, so I'm leaving the headline as is.
In the far simpler days of 2001, when the President of the United States didn't suck up to genocidal dictators and thank Russia for helping him win the Electoral College, an episode of The West Wing aired entitled "The Indians in the Lobby".
The Trump administration may alter the way it determines the national poverty threshold, putting Americans living on the margins at risk of losing access to welfare programs.
