Health

Paul Waldman argues that the health care plans proposed by the GOP candidates “all share one feature, the thing that tells you that they aren’t even remotely serious about this issue: they will take as their starting point that the entire Affordable Care Act should be repealed.”

“It shows that they’re completely unwilling to grapple with both the health care system as it exists today, and how incredibly disruptive the wholesale changes they’re proposing would be. Walker’s plan even says, ‘unlike the disruption caused by ObamaCare, my plan would allow for a smooth, easy transition into a better health care system.’ This is the health care equivalent of thinking the Iraq War would be a cakewalk.

“The reality is that repealing the ACA now that it has been implemented would mean a complete and utter transformation of American health care … You can’t pretend that unwinding them all would be anything resembling a ‘smooth, easy transition.’”

“That doesn’t mean that repeal is impossible, just that it would be a spectacular upheaval, one that I promise you Republicans have no genuine appetite for.”

Baltimore Sun: “A new survey shows that Ohio’s uninsured rates for children and adults have each dropped by about half since 2012. According to the 2015 Ohio Medicaid Assessment Survey, the state’s uninsured rate for adults fell to 8.7 percent in 2015, while the rate of uninsured children was 2 percent.”

Kaiser Health News: “The number of uninsured California adults under the age of 65 dropped by more than 15 percent between 2013 and 2014 because of the Affordable Care Act, including California’s Medi-Cal expansion, according to data released Tuesday.”

“’We’re seeing the biggest drop in the uninsured population in a generation,’ said David Dexter, communications coordinator for the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network, an advocacy group.”

“The number of people without health insurance continues to decline and has dropped by 15.8 million, or one-third, since 2013,” the New York Times reports.

“The decline occurred as major provisions of the Affordable Care Act took effect. The law expanded coverage through Medicaid and through subsidies for private insurance, starting in 2014. In the first three months of this year, the National Center for Health Statistics said, 29 million people were uninsured. That was seven million fewer than the average for 2014, after a reduction of 8.8 million from 2013 to 2014.”

“The data may bolster Democrats’ claims that the law is working as they intended, but it is unlikely to prompt Republicans to let up on criticism of the law, which was passed without any Republican votes.”

Gallup: “Arkansas and Kentucky continue to have the sharpest reductions in their uninsured rates since the healthcare law took effect at the beginning of 2014. Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington join them as states that have at least a 10-percentage-point reduction in uninsured rates.”

Washington Post: “Obamacare’s opponents have heralded reports from various parts of the country warning of double-digit percentage increases in insurance premiums proposed over the past couple of months. (These are premiums for individuals buying insurance on ACA marketplaces; employer-sponsored plans, which most Americans have, are not the primary focus of the law.) For example: Even after regulator review, Oregon’s largest ACA marketplace insurance plan will hike its 2016 premiums by 25 percent, and its second largest by 33 percent.”

“Big increases in the price of one insurance product, however, don’t necessarily represent overall trends. The Kaiser Family Foundation has produced a comprehensive study of 2016 premium increases and found that benchmark plans in 10 states and the District are rising an average of only 4.4 percent. Some insurers are decreasing their premiums by double digit percentages next year; others are increasing them by double digit percentages; many others are seeing relatively modest changes. The Department of Health and Human Services found in June that ‘most people will be enrolled in plans with proposed rate increases of less than 10 percent.'”

“True, average numbers won’t be comfortable to those facing double-digit premium increases in an insurance plan they like. Yet these customers aren’t locked into that plan. An HHS study released Thursday found that market competition increased markedly in 2015, and Obama administration officials predict it will again in 2016. People, in other words, have options.”

Megan McArdle: “In recent years, health care cost growth has slowed down. This is great news for the federal budget, and for those of us who, you know, get health care occasionally. Unfortunately, researchers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services project that the good news may be over. With the population aging, the economy recovering, and Obamacare expanding coverage, they expect health care cost growth to average almost 6 percent over the next decade.”

“That’s not all bad news. The population is aging because people are living longer. And economic recovery will give us more income to pay our higher health care costs. The newly insured are presumably pretty happy about it too. So there’s no reason to go into paroxysms of mourning over this news. However, it does cast light on a debate that has been going on for some time: why growth in health expenditures has gone down.”

Kaiser Health News: “A statewide survey has found that newly insured Californians no longer rank health care costs as their top financial concern. It has dropped below other essentials such as housing, utilities and gasoline.”

“About two-thirds of Californians who were uninsured in 2013 now have health insurance, according to the survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, which was released Thursday.”

“The Kaiser Family Foundation survey found the recently insured are largely satisfied with their coverage, including 83 percent of Medi-Cal enrollees and 63 percent of Californians who purchased private plans on the Covered California exchange. One positive, according to the survey respondents, was that they are having an easier time getting medical attention.”

“The survey also found a striking reduction in the percentage of recently insured Californians who struggled to pay medical bills: 23 percent said they faced difficulties, down from 45 percent in 2013.”