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One-third of people in small-firm low-income families remain uninsured

One-third of people in small-firm low-income families remain uninsured

Despite Coverage Gains, One-Third Of People In Small-Firm Low-Income Families Were Uninsured In 2014–15

By Patricia S. Keenan, Paul D. Jacobs, and G. Edward Miller
Health Affairs, October 2018

Abstract

Obtaining health insurance coverage has historically been challenging for workers at small firms and the self-employed. Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we found that the overall uninsurance rate for these workers and their families declined by 5 percentage points over the past decade, but one-third of those with lower incomes remained uninsured in 2014–15.

From the Introduction

Obtaining health insurance has been a long-standing challenge for many self-employed and small-firm workers. The nature of this challenge has evolved over the past decade, as the Great Recession reduced access to employer-sponsored insurance, and health insurance reforms under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) increased the availability of private and public coverage. While the decline in employer coverage offer rates in small firms is well established, less is known about how recent changes to that coverage, individual insurance, and Medicaid have affected how small-firm and self-employed workers and their families get coverage.

Using data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey–Household Component (MEPS-HC), we found that insurance coverage improved at all income levels over the ten-year period from 2004–05 to 2014–15 (we pooled data into two-year pairs to improve precision). Those with family incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level showed the largest gains (9.5 percentage points), but one-third remained uninsured in 2014–15.

These trends are particularly important given ongoing policy interest in improving coverage for small-firm and self-employed workers. Compared to large-firm workers, small-firm workers typically face more limited availability of employer-sponsored insurance and higher premiums because of higher administrative costs and a more limited ability to spread risk. Small-firm workers and the self-employed are less likely than workers in larger firms to have an employer coverage offer. They also generally earn less, which makes more of them eligible for Medicaid or the ACA’s Marketplace premium subsidies. Other ACA policies such as the Small Business Health Options Program and Small Business Health Care Tax Credits aimed to enhance coverage, but take-up has been limited. The 21st Century Cures Act of 2016 created an option for small firms to make tax-advantaged contributions to help subsidize individual-market coverage for their workers. The administration of President Donald Trump is implementing policies intended to make it easier for small businesses to buy group insurance coverage for workers through association health plans or contribute to the individual-market coverage that workers purchase.

Recent studies have analyzed changes in coverage for small-firm workers and the self-employed, but little is known about how coverage has changed for these workers and their families. By including family members, we account for the availability of employer coverage through a spouse. We also comprehensively describe the relationship between working in small firms and having insurance coverage for family members.

From the Discussion

Among the subgroups we examined, from 2010–11 to 2014–15 uninsurance rates fell the most among low-income families with small-firm or self-employed workers and in families with only small-firm workers, as Medicaid and other private insurance grew. Despite gains in coverage, these groups still had the highest uninsurance rates in 2014–15, with nearly one-third of people in low-income families uninsured.

A number of factors make small-firm and self-employed workers and their family members more likely to be uninsured than individuals in families with one or more large-firm workers. Compared to larger firms, small firms in the US face significant challenges in providing affordable insurance to their employees. Small firms also have low and declining employer coverage offer rates and provide less continuity of coverage than larger firms do. In addition, small firms are less likely to offer affordable dependent coverage, which may lead families to obtain coverage from multiple sources and could reduce uptake of coverage for children (as shown in studies of Medicaid).

Small-firm workers and their families with lower incomes were more likely to be uninsured and had the lowest employer coverage rates, which suggests that the high and increasing cost of such coverage is likely a major impediment to coverage for lower-income families.

https://www.healthaffairs.org…

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

During the development of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), it was interesting to watch Congress patch together policies to try to fill the voids in health care coverage. Although each patch helped, the patchwork model of reform still inevitably left many holes in the system. This study shows that, for low-income individuals employed by small firms, one-third of family members remain uninsured – obviously an unacceptable deficiency in coverage.

For those who support building on the Affordable Care Act as a means to fill in the gaps in coverage, they are going to have to propose specific policies that will work. Expand Medicaid? The program has already been expanded under ACA, and so how are you going to change it to target these families? An employer mandate? That was rejected for small firms because of their very tight budgets. An individual mandate? These people have low incomes, so the subsidies would have to be even greater and how far would they extend into middle-income families that are also having difficulties with paying for health insurance? Depend on lower premiums through market competition of health plans? Get real.

Not only does the patchwork approach still leave too many holes in the system, it also leaves in place the existing health care financing infrastructure with its profound administrative waste, extreme fragmentation and inefficiency, and very high costs, while leaving in place inequities and deficiencies in coverage.

We seem to be having difficulty explaining to ACA supporters that building on ACA is not only the most expensive model of reform, but it is one of the least effective in that it leaves most of the flawed policies in place. Instead of increasing costs while falling far short, with what we’re already spending we could fill in all the voids while increasing efficiency and equity in the system simply by enacting and implementing a well designed, single payer, improved Medicare for all. That would take care of not only low-income families dependent on small-firm employment, but it would guarantee comprehensive, life-long coverage for everyone else as well.

Adding a public option to this mess would do very little to fill the voids and correct the deficiencies. That is why it is important to call people out who are using the “Medicare for All” label to refer to merely adding a public option or buy-in. We have to demand that the Medicare for All label refers only to the real thing – an improved and expanded Medicare that includes absolutely everyone and is affordable for all. The public option doesn’t even come close.

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Immigrants help pay for our health care

Immigrants Pay More In Private Insurance Premiums Than They Receive In Benefits

By Leah Zallman, Steffie Woolhandler, Sharon Touw, David U. Himmelstein, and Karen E. Finnegan
Health Affairs, October 2018

Abstract

As US policy makers tackle immigration reform, knowing whether immigrants are a burden on the nation’s health care system can inform the debate. Previous studies have indicated that immigrants contribute more to Medicare than they receive in benefits but have not examined whether the roughly 50 percent of immigrants with private coverage provide a similar subsidy or even drain health care resources. Using nationally representative data, we found that immigrants accounted for 12.6 percent of premiums paid to private insurers in 2014, but only 9.1 percent of insurer expenditures. Immigrants’ annual premiums exceeded their care expenditures by $1,123 per enrollee (for a total of $24.7 billion), which offsets a deficit of $163 per US-born enrollee. Their net subsidy persisted even after ten years of US residence. In 2008–14, the surplus premiums of immigrants totaled $174.4 billion. These findings suggest that policies curtailing immigration could reduce the numbers of “actuarially desirable” people with private insurance, thereby weakening the risk pool.

From the Discussion

Immigrants contributed far more in premiums for private coverage in 2014 than their insurers paid out for their care, with undocumented immigrants generating the largest per enrollee surplus. This net surplus offset a deficit incurred by US natives and exceeded total insurance industry profits by about $10 billion that year. Our 2014 findings were not anomalous: Immigrants made large net contributions in every year in the period 2008–14, with little change over time.

While immigrants’ premiums were similar to those for US natives, immigrants incurred much lower expenditures—a disparity that was present in analyses limited to working-age adults. Among immigrants, expenditures increased with duration of time in the US, a phenomenon documented previously. This may reflect worsening health habits related to acculturation, increased care-seeking behaviors, and increased educational standing with time in the US. However, because premium contributions also increased with time in the US, immigrants made a net contribution to private health insurance regardless of their length of residence in the US.

Our findings contradict assertions that people born in the US are systematically subsidizing the medical care of immigrants, particularly those who are undocumented. On the contrary, immigrants subsidize US natives in the private health insurance market, just as they are propping up the Medicare Trust Funds.

Immigrants’ subsidies to private insurance and Medicare likely reflect their relative youth and good health, as well as the reluctance of many to seek care. Policies that curtail the flow of immigration to the US are likely to result in a declining number of such “actuarially desirable” persons, which could worsen the private insurance risk pool.

https://www.healthaffairs.org…

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Immigrants who come to the United States to work are generally relatively young and healthy and thus have little need for health care services, yet they pay payroll taxes into the Medicare Trust Funds and thus are subsidizing health care for U.S. citizens on Medicare. This study adds to that by showing that immigrants, whether or not they are documented, pay more in health insurance premiums that they utilize in health care; thus they are also subsidizing U.S. citizens through the private health insurance market.

Currently the Trump administration is considering a proposed rule that would greatly expand the guidelines for “public charge” – immigrants who use  government services. If they are deemed a public charge, the rule would be used to reduce or revoke their immigration status, perhaps even deporting them from the country in spite of otherwise having complied with immigration requirements. Obviously this could have a deleterious impact on the health of the immigrants and their families, even if they are here legally.

Perhaps the fact that they pay more into Medicare and private health plans than they receive in health benefits should warrant a new concept – “public credit.” Public credit could include other factors such as, for example, the contribution of immigrants to our economy that is significantly greater than the very modest incomes that most of them receive. This and other studies suggest that the public credit would be much larger on the balance sheet than would be the public charge. Surely deportation is not a proper expression of gratitude for the debt that we owe most of them.

The proposed rule on public charge is about to be published in the Federal Register at which time a 60 day period for public comment will begin, after which the rule will be implemented. If we wish to continue to benefit from the contributions of our immigrants, we should consider requesting that a public credit be applied as an offset against the public charge (though that might be a concept that would clash with the ethnic animus of the nationalists in the Trump administration).

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

The case for improved Medicare for all

Interview with Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal

America’s Work Force Radio, October 2, 2018

Today on the show we have two guests, Jason Perlman and Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal. Jason Perlman is a political director with the Ohio AFL-CIO and Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal is a dermatologist.

Dr. Rosenthal, who spent 38 years practicing dermatology, talks about health care and single payer health care. Dr. Rosenthal is the daughter of a doctor and the granddaughter of a doctor, so she knows all about how health care has changed over the years. She discusses expanding Medicare to all Americans by taking out the private parts, and keeping the public parts…and giving them to everybody; publicly funded, privately delivered.

Note: Dr. Rosenthal’s segment starts at the 37:45 mark.

full audio:
http://awfradio.com…

Medicaid managed care contracts with academic medical centers

Whipsawed: Low-Income Patients At UC Davis Losing Coverage Again

By Rob Waters
California Healthline, September 26, 2018

Whipsawed is not a medical condition, but it describes exactly how Lee Henderson feels about his on-again, off-again care at UC Davis Medical Center, a place he’s been visiting since he was a child.

For the second time in three years, Henderson is about to lose access to his primary care team at the Sacramento institution.

When Henderson had surgery there in 2015 to remove an adrenal gland that was severely elevating his blood pressure, he was covered by Health Net, the only Medi-Cal managed-care plan in Sacramento County whose members could go to UC Davis for primary care at the time.

But shortly after his surgery, Henderson learned that his insurer and the university were terminating their contract, forcing him and an estimated 3,700 other Health Net Medi-Cal members to leave UC Davis and find new primary care doctors.

Now, history is repeating itself. After briefly regaining access to UC Davis last year, when UnitedHealthcare entered the Sacramento Medi-Cal market and signed an agreement with the medical center, Henderson and 1,000 other patients are getting booted out again.

On July 25, those patients got a letter from UnitedHealth. “Dear member,” it began, “we’re writing to let you know that our Medi-Cal services in Sacramento County will be discontinued effective October 31, 2018.”

Medi-Cal, California’s version of the federal Medicaid program for low-income residents, serves 13.5 million people, about one-third of the state’s population. The vast majority of them — about 80 percent — are served by managed-care plans, in which the state pays insurers a fixed amount per enrollee to provide comprehensive care.

That contrasts with fee-for-service Medi-Cal, in which the state pays medical providers directly for services provided. Medi-Cal enrollees are generally required to sign up for managed care.

The exit of UnitedHealth from Sacramento County’s managed-care Medi-Cal program means that, once again, no Medi-Cal patients on managed-care plans in the county will be able to go to UC Davis for primary care.

At the core of the issue is money. UC Davis has complained for years about low Medi-Cal reimbursement rates. (UC Davis spokesman Charles) Casey said that in 2017 the health system absorbed more than $93 million in unreimbursed costs serving Medi-Cal patients.

(Senator Richard) Pan, who now chairs the Senate Health Committee, said the structure of Medi-Cal managed care in Sacramento, which gives enrollees the choice of multiple plans, was a lose-lose for UC Davis and UnitedHealth, because the sickest, most expensive patients wanted to be on a plan that gave them access to the medical center.

“You get all the sick people — asthma or cancer or sickle cell,” he said. “The Medi-Cal contract did not account for the fact that you have a sicker population.”

The sudden loss of access to the broad and highly skilled network of doctors at UC Davis is especially hard for patients with complex conditions, said Elaine Abelaye-Mateo, a community advocate with the Health Access Action Team of Sacramento Building Healthy Communities.

https://californiahealthline.org…

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Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Although the concept of a single payer, improved Medicare for all has become quite popular, many in the policy community and legislative bodies would prefer to continue with our existing health care financing system as modified by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Even if it were tweaked to further expand coverage, today’s report demonstrates just one of a great multitude of examples as to why the current system is unsatisfactory.

Under ACA, more low-income Californians were enrolled in Medi-Cal (California’s Medicaid program) – a total of about 13.5 million (more than the entire population of each of 46 other states!) and 80 percent of them have been shoved into Medicaid managed care plans on the theory that it would be cheaper (by administrative fiat – California ranks 47th of all states for Medicaid payment rates) and that care would be better managed (highly disputed and likely untrue).

So what are some of the policy considerations under Medi-Cal? Perhaps above all, Medi-Cal is a welfare program and thus is chronically underfunded, failing to meet the financing requirements for the essential health care services required by the enrollees.

Investor-owned, for-profit Medicaid managed care organizations are required to make a profit for their investors, so when underfunded with a fixed capitation rate, they can profit only by decreasing care provided. As masters of innovation, there are many ways the private insurers can do that, but basically their measures impair access to health care services.

An important component of the health care delivery system is the academic medical center (AMC). Patients with more complex and long-term problems will often select plans that include an AMC in their provider networks, especially if they are already patients of that center. Adverse selection is inevitable since the plans that include AMCs will attract sicker, more expensive patients. When a Medicaid managed care program is already operating at a loss, adverse selection will increase their losses and thus force a decision to withdraw from the market. This is exactly what Health Net and then UnitedHealth did with their contracts with UC Davis Medical Center. With no UC Davis Medi-Cal contract for primary care, Medi-Cal managed care patients were left without a choice of a plan that included UC Davis. Besides, Sen. Richard Pan says, “Why is a public, state-owned university that’s running a health system not contracting with the state health plan?”

Suppose we had a single payer Medicare for all instead. First, we would not have a separate health care welfare program for low-income people without much of a political voice; we would have a single, comprehensive program for everyone. We would not have private, investor-owned, for profit corporations managing the health care funds in a manner that, by necessity (ask SEC), places investors above patients; we would have a single, publicly-funded and publicly-administered program instead. We would not have stewards trying to create barriers to health care to improve the bottom line; instead our public  stewards would be assisting patients in gaining access to the care they need. We would not have patients arbitrarily excluded from academic medical centers; instead the centers would be providing specialized services to patients equitably, based on priority. We would not have a financing system that frequently results in adverse selection with all of its consequences; risk would be borne by the public payer rather than the providers or patients. We would not have sectors of health care that were deliberately underfinanced, with its consequences as well; the national global budget for health care would be adequate to meet the needs of the nation. We would not have narrow provider networks that deliberately limit access and fragment care for strictly business purposes; patients would have their choice of health care professionals and institutions.

The academic medical center should be available to the entire community with appropriate referral made through the primary care infrastructure and the universal, integrated referral system. Under a well designed, single payer, improved Medicare for all, AMCs would be available to all, as appropriate.

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

Immigrants paid $24.7 billion more into private insurance than was spent on their care: Harvard researchers

Study published today in Health Affairs finds that immigrants boost the profits of private insurers, heavily subsidize the benefits of U.S.-born enrollees

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 1, 2018

Contacts: Leah Zallman, M.D., M.P.H., Institute for Community Health and Harvard Medical School, lzallman@icommunityhealth.org; Clare Fauke, PNHP communications specialist, clare@pnhp.org.

Immigrants pay billions more in private insurance premiums than insurers pay out for their care, according to a new study by researchers from Harvard Medical School and the City University of New York at Hunter College. The study, the first to look at immigrants’ role in financing private health insurance, found that immigrants paid $88.7 billion in private insurance premiums but used only $64.0 billion in insurer-paid health care, generating a surplus of $24.7 billion in 2014. Between 2008 and 2014, immigrants generated a cumulative surplus of $174.4 billion.

On a per-enrollee basis, the study found that immigrants provided an average premium-over-payout surplus of $1,123 each, while U.S.-born Americans incurred an average deficit of $163 each. Undocumented immigrants, who generally use little medical care, generated the largest surplus at $1,445 per enrollee. Previous research shows that insurance outlays for immigrants are low because they are relatively young and healthy, and often face linguistic and other barriers to care.

Researchers used data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and the Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey to determine immigrants’ premium contributions to private insurance, including premiums that employers paid on their behalf (which economists consider part of employees’ earned compensation). Then they tabulated all payments that private insurers made to doctors, hospitals, and other providers for immigrants’ care to determine whether immigrants paid more or less into private insurance than they used.

The authors note that since undocumented immigrants or those residing legally in the U.S. for fewer than five years are not eligible for Medicaid and Medicare, private insurance is often immigrants’ only coverage option. Because immigrants are mostly working-age adults with high rates of labor force participation, many enroll in job-based coverage.

“Almost every day I see immigrant patients who avoid seeking the care they need to stay healthy,” said lead author Dr. Leah Zallman, director of research at the Institute for Community Health, physician at Cambridge Health Alliance, and assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Political leaders have created a climate of fear by blaming immigrants for driving up health care costs. However, this study and our prior research shows that by paying more into the system than they receive, immigrants actually subsidize both private insurance and Medicare for U.S.-born citizens.”

“Immigrants contribute tens of billions to our health economy, and account for 21% of all doctors in the U.S.,” said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, professor of health policy at Hunter College, City University of New York, and lecturer in medicine at Harvard Medical School. “Reducing immigration could weaken both the private insurance risk pool and the Medicare Trust Fund, making insurance more expensive for everyone else.”

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“Immigrants Pay More in Private Insurance Premiums Than They Receive in Benefits” Leah Zallman, M.D., M.P.H., Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H., Sharon Touw, M.P.H., David Himmelstein, M.D., Karen Finnegan, P.h.D., Health Affairs, Oct. 1, 2018. DOI: 10.1377/hlthaff.2018.0309

A copy of the full study is available to media professionals upon request from Ms. Fauke.

Physicians for a National Health Program (www.pnhp.org) is a nonprofit research and educational organization of more than 22,000 doctors who support a single-payer national health program. PNHP had no role in funding or otherwise supporting the study above.

Immigrants’ Health Premiums Far Exceed What Plans Pay For Their Care

By Carmen Heredia Rodriguez
Kaiser Health News, October 1, 2018

President Donald Trump has repeatedly condemned U.S. immigration policy, arguing that many immigrants pose a threat to the nation and drain U.S. resources. But a study released Monday about health insurance challenges the president’s portrayal.

The study in the journal Health Affairs found that immigrants covered by private health insurance and their employers contributed nearly $25 billion more in premiums in 2014 than was spent on their care. Those in the country without legal status contributed nearly $8 billion toward the surplus.

In contrast, U.S.-born enrollees spent nearly $25 billion more than they paid for in premiums.

These findings surface as the Trump administration’s immigration policies — including a plan to tie migrants’ efforts to get permission for permanent residency to their use of federal benefit programs — have come under scrutiny.

Earlier studies also found that immigrants contribute more to Medicare than they receive in benefits, but the authors of this study say it is the first to look at the effect in private insurance plans.

Leah Zallman, assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and lead author of the study, said her findings allude to the potentially negative consequences that tighter immigration policies could have on the health care industry.

“I think in today’s era … there’s so much concern about immigrants and immigration really sort of draining our resources in the U.S.,” Zallman said. “This really points to the critical role that immigrants have in actually subsidizing and maintaining our current systems.”

Researchers calculated the financial contributions and expenses of enrollees and their employers using two surveys created by the federal government. Plans sold on the federal health law’s insurance exchanges were not included because they “differ from other private insurance in important ways and are unavailable to undocumented people,” the study authors noted.

Anyone born outside of the United States was categorized as an immigrant. However, the surveys did not ask non-citizens with private coverage about their legal status. Researchers used national data on undocumented immigrants to estimate how many people in the study group illegally resided in the country.

In 2014, immigrants and their employers contributed $88.7 billion in private insurance premiums, but spent only $64 billion for care, according to the study’s findings. Of that group, undocumented immigrants alone paid more than $17 billion to private insurers but used only $9.4 billion.

Native-born consumers paid $616 billion in premiums and received nearly $641 billion in insurers’ payments for care. They also consistently outspent immigrants across all age groups. Among enrollees 65 and older, the U.S.-born made a net contribution of nearly $10,000 more toward their care than those born overseas, according to the study.

The researchers reported that, on average, individual immigrants paid $1,123 more for premiums in 2014 than they received in insurance-covered care. U.S. natives instead cost insurers $163 on average.

Leighton Ku, director of the Center for Health Policy Research at George Washington University who was not involved in the study, said several factors contribute to immigrants’ low health care expenses. The group tends to be healthier and younger when they arrive in the United States. Cultural and language differences also hinder them from accessing care.

The study noted that immigrants’ health care expenditures increased the longer they remained in the country. But it added that since their premiums also increased at the same time, they continued to make a net contribution to their private health plans.

The findings come about a week after the Department of Homeland Security proposed redefining how it would determine “public charge,” a term used to describe a person likely to become dependent on the government for assistance. The proposal would make it harder for immigrants to live and work permanently in the U.S. if they receive certain types of federal assistance, such as Medicaid, food stamps and housing subsidies.

Trump has vowed to be tough on immigration standards. During his campaign, he berated U.S. health expenditures on immigrants, arguing that the U.S. spent $11 billion for care to people who were in the country without authorization, the study’s authors note.

But they point out that earlier research shows that immigrants have low rates of health care use and spending, compared with native residents. Their payments to private plans and Medicare in essence prop up care for patients who are U.S.-born, the authors say.

A study Zallman published earlier showed unauthorized immigrants contributed $35.1 billion more to Medicare from 2000 to 2011 than they used in services.

Benedic Ippolito, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, cautioned using the study’s findings to draw conclusions on a large scale about immigrants and their role in health insurance. An estimated 20 percent of immigrants — including nearly half of the undocumented population — are uninsured, according to the study. Ippolito said the cost of their uncompensated care affects whether immigrants’ financial contributions actually lead to surpluses for health care overall.

“I would be careful about how much I extrapolate these results to a) other parts of the health insurance market and b) even further to what this means for immigration policy,” Ippolito said. “This paper alone does not tell us everything we need to know.”

Ku echoed the uncertainty. He said he is not certain how the Trump administration’s latest actions will affect immigrants enrolled in private insurance. Having a private plan may suggest they are employed with a certain income stability. However, if enough immigrants leave the insurance market, he added, it may have the unintended consequence of making health plans more expensive for everyone else.

“That does have the following implication that to the extent that we do things to suppress immigrants or make it harder for them to purchase insurance then in that case we may do harm to the citizens,” he said.

https://khn.org…

Single-Payer Health Care: “The Next Logical Step”

By Chandak Ghosh, M.D., M.P.H.
EyeNet, Letters, October 2018

Reading “Single-Payer Health Care: Of Canada and California” (Current Perspective, August), I was struck by its alarmist tone.

Single-payer health care is suddenly looking attractive to Americans because of the failure of for-profit, private insurance-centered health care. Before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was implemented in 2010, insurance prices were increasing exponentially; 15% (and quickly rising) of Americans were uninsured; medical bills caused most bankruptcies; quality remained the worst among comparable countries; and health care was reaching 20% of the federal budget and gross domestic product.1

With the ACA, we attempted a market-based approach. It stabilized prices, but its complexity and continued reliance on private insurance has doomed it. The Republican Party is dismantling ACA without any workable replacement.2

The type of single-payer gaining most support is an improved “Medicare for all.” Yes, taxes will go up, but Americans will no longer pay private insurance premiums, deductibles, co-pays, and co-insurance. Drug prices will fall.1 People will pay about one-third less for health care overall.1 Doctors and hospitals will enjoy a precipitous drop in administrative costs and malpractice insurance prices.2 Medical students will pay much less for schooling and avoid the crush of student loans. Best of all, every American will gain access to a higher quality of care, improving outcomes while decreasing costs.

Private insurance is just a middleman that moves money from the patient to the provider. Its real point is to make profits for shareholders, yet we are paying 30 cents of every health care dollar for administrative costs and insurance company profits, instead of improving health.1

The single-payer form of universal coverage will come to the United States, as it remains the cheapest way to cover everyone. We see it succeeding in nearly every developed country of the world, and in the United States as Medicare, the government’s most beloved program. Expanding Medicare to cover everyone is the next logical step.

https://www.aao.org…

References

1. Gaffney A. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 2018;37:188-195.

2. Woolhandler S, Himmelstein D. Ann Intern Med. 2017;166(8):587-588.

Doctor: National health care is a ‘moral imperative’

By Jenny Gray
Fulton (Mo.) Sun, September 30, 2018

This week, Dr. Robert Blake, emeritus professor of Family and Community Medicine at the University of Missouri, remembered a patient who died, but possibly could have lived a longer life.

“He was a farmer and had high blood pressure,” Blake said.

The farmer had an insurance policy with a high deductible, and because of that, couldn’t afford to do a lot.

“It was a huge barrier to him getting health care,” Blake said.

The doctor said he helped him as much as possible with cheaper medication and good advice, but if he’d had access to more expensive treatment, his story might have ended another way.

“He had a disabling stroke and died soon after,” he added of the patient.

Blake brought his understanding of challenges to health care in rural communities to a gathering Monday at KACO the Kitchen. This informal discussion was hosted by Callaway County Concerned Citizens, a local group that discusses issues in Callaway County.

“I’m old enough to remember the old hospital on Jefferson Street,” group leader Margot McMillen said.

That facilities lacked in technology, and so the Fulton community decided to build another.

“The community got together to buy land and build the hospital on Hospital Drive,” she said. “Nowadays, we don’t know what the future of that hospital will be.”

CCCC started meeting about a year and a half ago to look at issues including education, environment and health care. They’ve also discussed alternative energy, a community health ordinance to do with confined animal feeding operations and voter line redistricting.

“We meet on the fourth Monday of every month at KACO,” McMillen said.

In line with concerns about rising costs of health care and lack of access and affordability, CCCC members invited Blake to talk about a national health care system, including a Medicare-for-all option. For decades, he has been a member of a national organization, Physicians for a National Health Program, comprising health professionals and others who advocate for universal health care in the United States. Blake is also a member of the recently organized Columbia chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org/states/missouri).

In 1971, Sen. Ed Kennedy began advocating for a national health care system in the United States. In 2009, before his death, he wrote in Newsweek magazine: “Every American should be able to get the same treatment that U.S. senators are entitled to. This is the cause of my life.”

Blake finds the state of health care in the U.S. in need of a major overhaul, he said.

He added that health is, “A state of complete physical, mental and social well-being — not just the absence of disease.”

Health is vital to quality of life, Blake said.

“Health enables you to do what you want to do,” he added.

Blake said and others back up the fact Americans spend more on health care per capita than any other country in the world.

“We spent $3.5 trillion on health care, and it’s 18 percent of the GDP (gross domestic product) of our economy. It costs about $10,000 per person — two times as much as any other country for an individual person,” he said.

That $3.5 trillion is about one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Despite the high price tag, the U.S. remains the only wealthy, developed nation without universal health coverage.

“We should have the best health care system in the world, but in fact, that’s far from the case,” Blake said.

“Look at the longevity rates, the mortality rates. We have shorter life spans and higher infant mortality,” than countries with universal health care, he said. “Women are more likely to die from pregnancy complications than women in 45 other countries.”

Blake cited one example of a common disease.

“People with cystic fibrosis in Canada live 10 years longer than in the United States,” he said. “It’s the same disease. It’s the same treatments.”

There are several different kinds of health care systems being managed around the world.

“Canada pays for insurance for everybody,” Blake said. “Taiwan and Australia and Sweden do it in somewhat different ways.”

The United Kingdom used the National Health Service, single-payer model, tax funded with most health care provided through public hospitals and clinic. In the U.S., the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs operates similarly.

National Health Insurance is a model in which the government mandates everyone have health insurance delivered through a mix of public, nonprofit and for-profit providers.

The U.S. Medicare system is also a single-payer model where everyone is required to pay into a government insurance plan, which in turn pays doctors and hospitals. While Medicare serves citizens age 65 and older, some are calling for reformation including all citizens in this program.

Blake said, before the Affordable Care Act, 50 million Americans — 17 percent of the population — had no health insurance. Another 50 million were under-insured.

“They didn’t have what they needed,” he said. “And 44,000 Americans die every year because of the lack of health insurance. Imagine the reaction if 44,000 Americans were killed by terrorists. It would be a different reaction.”

When the ACA was enacted, the 17 percent dropped to 9 percent, but in states like Missouri that didn’t expand Medicaid programs to its residents, the number dropped to just 12 percent.

“I think there is a better solution,” Blake added. “We have the resources. We should be able to do this. Other countries are able to do this.”

Opening Medicare to everyone is a popular option, “And it’s also effective,” Blake said.

He said health improves for older Americans once they are eligible for Medicare.

“At age 65, the mortality in the United States begins to improve, and it’s progressive,” he added. “Medicare covers these people, and this is incredibly powerful evidence.”

Administrative costs for Medicare are 3 percent, with the rest of the money collected going to patient care. For Medicaid, it’s 5 percent. However, for insurance companies, it’s more like 20-30 percent. The ACA required 80-85 percent of funds raised go to patient care.

“It forced insurance companies to spend more on patients, and so they pulled out of the exchanges,” Blake added.

People with no insurance — often the poorest and most at risk — are charged the highest rates.

“With a single-payer system, you get rid of all that,” Blake said.

If all Americans are paying into that system, it will support a big pool of money for those who need it the most.

For Blake, it comes down to one thing.

“There’s the moral argument. Our fellow citizens deserve this,” he said. “Health care to me is a fundamental human right. We’re never going to provide a system that provides everybody with everything they want; we need professional to help them meet their needs. The number one reason we deserve this: To me, it’s a moral imperative.”

http://www.fultonsun.com…

TRUMPCARE by John Geyman, M.D.

TRUMPCARE: Lies, Broken Promises, How It Is Failing, and What Should Be Done

From the Preface

Chaos reigns throughout our increasingly fragmented and dysfunctional health care system. Corporate mergers and profits are the order of the day, with the business “ethic” to make more money trumping the traditional service ethic of care. Health care is becoming less and less affordable or accessible, while Americans continue to lose free choice of physician, other providers, and hospitals. Family budgets are already strained to the limits as many patients forgo necessary care, have worse outcomes if and when they finally get care, and often have to choose between food and medications.

Health care is a leading issue in the forthcoming 2018 midterm elections, and promises to be in the 2020 election cycle. This book undertakes four goals: (1) to describe what our increasingly dysfunctional health care system looks like after the ACA has been gutted by GOP sabotage; (2) to show how TrumpCare will fail patients, families, tax payers, and the nation; (3) to describe the increasing crisis in U.S. health care; and (4) to outline the only two future scenarios that could deal with this worsening situation, only one of which will work.

It is my hope that this book will help voters to better understand their options during the coming election cycles, as well as help candidates hoping to be elected to positions where that can make a difference.

https://www.amazon.com…

***

Comment:

By Don McCanne, M.D.

Our overpriced but underperforming health care system is being made worse under Trump policies. It is extremely urgent that we change direction. John Geyman explains what has gone wrong and what we can do about it so that absolutely everyone finally can have affordable, high quality health care.

By exercising their right to vote, people can change the national agenda. This book is designed to enable voters to make an informed choice in the current midterm election. More importantly, it will inform voters on sound policies that they can take to their respective parties to encourage incorporation into their party platforms for the next presidential election. A clear majority of Democrats and close to half of Republicans are already there. If both major parties were to include an improved Medicare for all in their platforms, then the next presidential election could actually provide a very real prospect of affordable health care for everyone.

Many have said that there are three scenarios for reform: Obamacare, TrumpCare, and single payer Medicare for all. Actually, as Geyman explains, there are only two since both Obamacare and TrumpCare are merely a perpetuation of our current, fragmented, dysfunctional method of financing health care with mere tweaks based on the ideology of the person holding office. Since Donald Trump is currently the president, the two nominal choices we have are TrumpCare and single payer Medicare for all. Geyman’s book explains why the latter is the only real choice if we want affordable, high quality care for everyone.

Stay informed! Visit www.pnhp.org/qotd to sign up for daily email updates.

Trump Responsible for Lower Premiums? … “Laughable”

ACA defenders take issues with HHS Secretary's recent claims

By Shannon Firth, Washington Correspondent
MedPage Today, September 28, 2018

Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar announced Thursday that insurance premiums on the federal exchange for benchmark plans are expected to fall by 2% nationally and and went on to credit President Trump for the decline, as well as what Azar said were numerous other improvements in the nation’s healthcare system.

Azar also ridiculed the “Medicare for All” proposals backed by many Democrats, in a speech he delivered in Nashville that was covered in detail by MedPage Today.

The secretary’s assertions did not sit well with supporters of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and Medicare for All contacted by MedPage Today.

‘Laughable’ Claim

“When you make a change in something as big as healthcare financing, you’re not going to see the results immediately,” said Carol Paris, MD, a retired psychiatrist and president of Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP), in a phone interview.

“It’s more likely that [President Trump’s] defunding the cost-sharing reductions created so much uncertainty in the insurance market last year that [insurers] set their premiums higher than they might have otherwise to give them some wiggle room.”

Insurers were overcautious and set their premiums too high, she added. “What we’re really seeing this year is the markets correcting themselves for chaos created by the Trump administration last year.”

Manan Trivedi, MD, president of the National Physicians Alliance, also questioned Azar’s logic: “ACA premiums are stabilizing despite the Trump administration…Americans could have seen premium costs go down in actual dollars if Trump and Azar didn’t recklessly repeal the individual mandate, allow the sale of stripped-down, short-term, junk insurance plans, and refuse to reimburse insurance companies for discounts they are required by law to offer to low-income customers,” he said in an email.

“These moves are a direct attempt at sabotaging the ACA,” he added, noting that despite the administration’s efforts the ACA’s popularity and stability continue to grow.

Eagan Kemp, a healthcare policy advocate for Public Citizen, called Azar’s comments “laughable.”

“From ending the individual mandate through the tax scam bill, to undermining ACA enrollment by refusing to support enrollment efforts, to allowing the sale of junk plans (both short-term plans and association health plans) without adequate state or federal oversight, this administration has shown nothing but disdain for the health of the American people,” he wrote in an email.

Claire McAndrew, director of Campaigns and Partnerships for Families USA, a left-leaning think tank, echoed Kemp and Trivedi highlighting that this administration had actually increased the rate of uninsurance, while at the same time opening the door to expanding “junk plans” that don’t provide patients with protections for preexisting conditions — referencing short-term health plans and association health plans.

“Any marketplace improvements are despite this administration, not because of it,” she wrote in an email to MedPage Today.

Can You Keep Your Doctor?

Left-leaning scholars were also skeptical of Azar’s remarks around Medicare for All.

Paris was not convinced by Azar’s argument that seniors find traditional Medicare lacking. In his speech, Azar argued that one-third of seniors have chosen Medicare Advantage plans because the provider more options and broader networks.

Healthier seniors are driven towards Medicare Advantage plans by lower premiums and “massive amounts of advertising,” but plan networks can be very narrow, Paris argued.

Also, when seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans get sick, as quickly as they can they switch to traditional Medicare, where the choice of doctors and hospitals is much broader, she continued.

“How Azar gets away with saying that people will have less choice of doctor and hospital with Medicare for All is ridiculous,” she added.

On Thursday, Azar suggested that because Medicare’s payments are significantly lower than private plans, doctors might opt out entirely and choose to take only cash.

“We’re not going to lose our physician work force with Medicare for all,” she said.

It didn’t happen in the U.S. in 1965, when Medicare was first enacted — despite plenty of “fear-mongering,” — and it also didn’t happen in Canada when it switched to a single-payer system, Paris noted.

(See MedPage Today‘s series “A Tale of Two Nations” for more on Canada’s health system versus the United States.)

‘Staggering’ Costs to Taxpayers?

Paris also challenged the “staggering” cost of the program that Azar decried. She cited a report from the right-leaning Mercatus Center, suggesting that the Medicare for All could potentially save the country $2 trillion. (The same paper also noted that the program would “place unprecedented strain on the federal budget.”)

But, from Paris’s perspective, “at the end of the day for 95% of Americans, they’ll have more money in their pockets, not less, because in exchange for having their taxes go up modestly, they are no longer paying premiums, copays, deductibles, [or] worrying about out-of-network expenses.

And “surprise bills” are what worry Americans most, Paris said, citing a recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll — even more than prescription drugs or insurance deductibles.

“It isn’t surprising that Azar would be all about scare tactics on Medicare for All, given that his former employers in the healthcare industry are concerned about the growing support for Medicare for All,” said Public Citizen’s Kemp.

“With 70% of Americans (including 85% of Democrats and, surprisingly, 52% of Republicans) supporting Medicare for All, Secretary Azar and [CMS] Administrator Verma are getting the message that they need to take on Medicare for All. But no matter what corporate talking points they put out, they know that the American people are tired of paying more for less in healthcare,” he continued.

Trivedi said he was not shocked to see a former drug company executive pan the expansion of “low-cost, high-quality healthcare” to millions of Americans.

“The truth is moving to a universal healthcare system like Medicare for All would be the best thing for Americans’ health and Americans’ pocketbooks — it unfortunately might not be greatest for the bottom line of the drug and medical device industry, to which so many in the Trump administration are beholden to,” Trivedi said.

Finally, another policy expert noted that there isn’t one single Medicare for All plan.

“While some ‘Medicare for All’ proposals may recommend using a Medicare-type model to create a public option or more universal healthcare system, in general these conversations are divorced from the actual Medicare program. Those that do recommend changes to Medicare focus on ways to fill gaps in coverage and lower costs for beneficiaries, improvements that are long overdue,” said Lindsey Copeland, Federal Policy Director for the Medicare Rights Center.

“Medicare is successful, and we support extending that type of insurance to other Americans. We disagree that doing so would undermine the current program. Expanding health coverage to more people does not equate with taking it away from others.”

https://www.medpagetoday.com…

Save Affordable Care Act, then expand coverage for all

By Carol Paris, M.D.
The Tennessean (Nashville), September 27, 2018

On Sept. 5, Tennessee Attorney General Herbert Slatery, along with 19 other state AGs, filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

If successful, this suit will render the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional, which would have dramatic effects on the health of millions of Tennesseans, whether they support the ACA or not.

Many people think of the ACA, sometimes called “Obamacare,” simply as a marketplace for health insurance, often with subsidies from the federal government. But the ACA is much more than a marketplace.

Since the ACA was signed into law in 2010, 255,800 Tennesseans have secured coverage. The ACA’s patient protection rules mean that  2.7 million Tennesseans with pre-existing conditions now have insurance.

The ACA also prohibits insurers from charging women more than men, and limits how much insurers can charge older adults. Parents can keep children on their health plans until the age of 26, instead of 19, when many young people are in school or working part time.

One of the most important elements of the ACA is the option for states to expand Medicaid. If our state legislature had passed Medicaid expansion, 163,000 more Tennesseans would have coverage today.

Despite these breakthroughs, the ACA has been tremendously controversial. Opponents argue the law increased premiums for those who earn too much to qualify for federal subsidies, and that the ACA’s “individual mandate” slapped an unfair tax penalty on those who purchased skimpy, non-compliant plans or skipped coverage altogether.

This individual mandate in particular is the target of the state lawsuits. When the mandate was challenged in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was a tax; since Congress has the right to implement taxes, the court did not strike it down. However, since Congress “zeroed out” the mandate’s tax penalty in 2017, Tennessee and other states argue that the entire ACA is now unconstitutional.

I am a physician — not a lawyer — so I can’t speak to the legal merits of the case. But as a doctor, I can tell you that as bad as our health system is now, it was much worse before 2010.

Former health insurance executive Wendell Potter said it best: “Things were great pre-ACA, unless you had the audacity to be born sick, a woman, get sick, enter adulthood, live beyond 50 or live in poverty. If you did any of those things, it got pretty rocky.”

Republican attempts to “repeal and replace” the ACA in 2017 (without, as it turns out, a replacement plan) revealed how much Americans value the law and, frankly, how desperate we are for any kind of protections in the insurance marketplace.

Even Sen. Lamar Alexander knows how popular the ACA is: He’s co-sponsoring the “Ensuring Coverage for Patients with Pre-Existing Conditions Act.” Sounds good, until you read the fine print. The bill allows insurers to write policies with coverage loopholes for pre-existing conditions.

For example, if you have Type 1 diabetes, a company like Aetna can’t refuse to sell you a policy, but they can refuse to cover your diabetes in that policy!  Which makes as much sense as selling a homeowners’ policy that doesn’t cover the roof. Or the walls.

For all ACA’s benefits — it halved the number of uninsured and curbed the insurance industry’s most ruthless practices — the law was just a bandage on a broken health system.

The ACA’s core flaw is its reliance on private insurance to reduce costs and expand coverage. The profit-driven insurance industry is the rotten apple poisoning everything else in the health care barrel, increasing administrative bloat and diverting dollars from needed medical care. Each year, insurers continue to strip down policies, increase out-of-pocket costs, maintain restrictive networks, and deny care. And at the same time, boast record profits.

As a doctor, I am trained to treat a patient’s immediate condition, but also address their long-term health prospects. Today, we must stop the bleeding and keep the ACA intact. But we quickly need to move on to the only system that is proven to both reduce costs and expand coverage — a single-payer, improved Medicare for All.

Carol Paris, M.D, is a retired physician and president of Physicians for a National Health Program.

https://www.tennessean.com…

Having ‘skin in game’ not smartest way to run health care

By George Bohmfalk, M.D.
The Aspen (Colo.) Times, September 27, 2018
(Part 4 of 6. Read parts 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6.)

Traditional Medicare and most for-profit insurance plans pay 80 percent of approved charges, with the insured person responsible for the balance. Most plans also require out-of-pocket deductibles and copayments.

The reasoning for this is that having people responsible for part of the cost of medical care should incentivize them to be cost-conscious in their health care spending, thereby holding down overall costs. This is often referred to as having “skin in the game,” a term that originated in the investment world.

Potential investors might be more inclined to put their money in a venture if the person promoting it also had some of his or her money invested, or “skin in the game.” That sounds like a good idea, but is it in health care, and has it worked?

Unfortunately, it has proved to be a bad idea and an economic failure.

Experience has shown that being responsible for part of one’s medical bills doesn’t reduce spending. Few people price-shop for their care. They either look for the “best” doctors and hospitals, or they have no options and take what’s available. Further, in most cases, prices aren’t available to the average patient. Very few hospitals can tell you what it will cost to have a hip replacement or ICU treatment for a heart attack. And if you’ve just had a heart attack or been injured in a car wreck or skiing accident, you’re not in a position to be shopping for the lowest-priced care.

Many who don’t have funds on hand for these up-front, out-of-pocket payments are harmed by this arrangement, as they are discouraged from obtaining care. Conditions that could be treated successfully and inexpensively often become untreatable or much more expensive to treat when treatment is delayed.

A Kaiser Foundation study also suggests that the administrative cost to bill for, collect and process these payments may exceed the revenues. Given all this, it’s likely that insurance with first-dollar coverage may result in better overall health outcomes at lower overall cost. Skin in the game isn’t such a good idea when the game is your health.

Will providing full health care insurance coverage to everyone actually improve our health? The National Academy of Medicine studied how we in the U.S. compare with 16 peer nations in death rates at various ages.

From birth to our mid-60s, we’re at or near the bottom. Our death rates are worse, meaning higher, than almost every other nation. But then something striking occurs: once we reach 65, our rankings improve, rapidly and dramatically. Within just a few years, we outlive our age peers in nearly every other nation.

What miracle accounts for this dramatic improvement in our health? Clearly, it’s when everyone finally has health care insurance, through Medicare. An even more striking result was seen in a Veterans Administration study: black patients fared worse than whites in the general population, but among veterans who had equal access to health care, health outcomes of black patients were 24 percent better than those of whites.

How many people were in those groups who died at a higher rate than foreigners? Harvard researchers calculated that around 45,000 Americans die each year as a direct result of not having insurance. The investigators were careful to determine that these deaths were not due to smoking, obesity, drugs or other personal habits. They were due to not having health care insurance and not being able to get medical care when needed. People who don’t have health care insurance have a 40 percent higher chance of dying. Period. They’re not bad or irresponsible people. They are your friends, your housekeepers and gardeners, your Uber drivers, ski instructors and musicians. They could be you.

This is a solvable problem. We can save enough money by moving to a single-payer system to provide full, complete health care insurance to everyone, with money left over. Ninety-five percent of households would pay less for full coverage than they currently spend for limited coverage. We can save lives, as well as money. Doing this can be less disruptive than continuing on the present course, and can be a boon for the economy.

Dr. George Bohmfalk practiced neurosurgery in Texas before retiring to spend half of each year in the Roaring Fork Valley. He is active in Physicians for a National Health Program, a physician-driven group advocating for a single-payer health care system.

https://www.aspentimes.com…