Oh. Well, I'm sure that was just a sheer coincidence, right? No doubt Aetna will clear this up with an unequivocal statement to put any speculation to...
From Peter Sullivan of The Hill:
Asked if the DOJ’s actions on the merger had any relation to Monday’s announcement, Aetna spokesman TJ Crawford did not directly say yes or no.
Economix is a graphic novel by Michael Goodwin, illustrated by Dan E. Burr, that explains the economy. More than a cartoon version of a textbook, Economix gives the whole story of the economy, from the rise of capitalism to Occupy Wall Street. Economix is published by Abrams Comic Arts.
Today he contacted me to inform me that he's using some of my data as part of his latest project: A bona fide 20-page comic book which explains, in laymans terms, the basics of the ACA, how Paul Ryan/Tom Price's replacement plan would work and why their replacement pretty much sucks eggs.
Here's a low-resolution version of the first page (which also just happens to be where he included my data) to give you a taste of what it's like. I'm absolutely floored and honored to play a small role in disseminating this information in such a user-friendly way:
I've recently updated the enrollment numbers out of Idaho, Connecticut and New York. None of them have moved the needle much, but the latest New York number did finally goad me into making a decision: Going forward, I'm going to start including Basic Health Plan enrollments in my Open Enrollment Period totals.
I'll still be separating them out, since the "official" number which is generally counted by everyone (including myself) only includes exchange-based Qualified Health Plans (QHPs)...but unlike standalone dental plans, BHPs are full medical insurance policies, enrolled in via the ACA exchanges, and while they may resemble Medicaid in some aspects, they aren't in either category or funding source. Furthermore, BHPs are also "cannibalizing" quite a few enrollees who would otherwise be enrolling in QHPs anyway, so it's important to recognize their impact on the numbers.
It's Back! Okay, folks, it's time to call your legislators, because the Drazkowski bill is back, and the GOP is giving it a full hearing TODAY!
This is the bill that would allow insurance companies to sell policies that do not cover chemotherapy, diabetes treatments, mental health services, maternity care, and many more benefits that are currently required to be covered by MN law.
The photo included is the Minnesota Statute 62Q, which is the statute that is being amended with this bill. These are the services that would be allowed to no longer be covered.
ACCESS HEALTH CT ENROLLS 106,891 CONSUMERS IN HEALTH INSURANCE
1,192 enrolled in dental care, 1,519 enrolled through the Small Business Program
HARTFORD, Conn. (January 20, 2017) – Today, Access Health CT (AHCT) CEO Jim Wadleigh announced that 106,891 individuals have enrolled in health insurance in 2017. In addition, 1,192 individuals enrolled in dental coverage and 1,519 enrolled via the Small Business Program.
“As we head towards the final days of Open Enrollment, which ends on January 31st, we want to remind Connecticut residents that Access Health CT offers many ways to get free help choosing a plan,” said AHCT CEO Jim Wadleigh. “We are also very happy to see people taking advantage of the dental coverage we offer.”
"The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it." --P.J. O'Rourke, Parliment of Whores
As I noted on Friday, Donald Trump's executive order essentially orders the incoming HHS Secretary (presumably Tom Price), along with other relevant agency heads, to do everything in their power to sabotage the ACA regardless of any repeal legislation (whether partial or total) on the part of Congress. Since the ACA grants the HHS Secretary pretty wide authority about how (and whether) to enforce various components of the law, this gives ample room for the Trump administration to make the individual mandate (among other ACA provisions) effectively meaningless.
Trump also issued a memo to all agencies requesting that they begin to "ease the burden of Obamacare as we transition from repeal to replace," Spicer said. He declined to provide specifics on what various agencies might do in response to the president's directive.
HOWEVER, David Anderson (formerly Richard Mayhew) notes that Section 2, which instructs the HHS Secretary to "waive, defer, grant exemptions from or delay" any "fiscal burdens" o sounds an awful lot like telling them to be absurdly lenient regarding granting "hardship exemptions" from the individual mandate:
@annaedney@ZTracer yes individual mandate exemptions will be passed out like pacifiers at a rave
Well, Republican U.S. Senator John Cornyn, the Majority Senate Whip (and therefore one of the biggest shots in the Senate) shot off quite a promise about the concerns regarding up to 32 million people potentially losing their healthcare coverage in the event the ACA is repealed:
One of the top concerns is what will happen to individuals who became eligible for Medicaid with its expansion under Obamacare. The Senate's No. 2 Republican, however, promised that no one who got coverage under Medicaid expansion will lose it.
When Conrnyn was asked if he was concerned about people who've benefited from Medicaid expansion losing coverage, he said it was a shared concern.
I've decided that for all future ACA enrollment data reports, I'm going to tack on "...on brink of possible ACA repeal" to the headline. Seems appropriate.
It's been quite awhile since I've written much of anything about the ACA's SHOP programs, which are the small business counterpart to the individual/family exchanges. The reason is pretty simple: SHOP enrollment is mostly a rounding error compared to either the ACA's Individual exchange enrollments or Medicaid expansion numbers.
SHOP enrollment (a mere 120K - 170K nationally, as far as I can tell) is even dwarfed by BHP program enrollment (around 700,000)...and that's only available in 2 states (Minnesota and New York). Heck, I don't even bother tracking them on my spreadsheets or graphs (I tried in 2014 but gave up on it the following year).
